The 2017 Pirelli Calendar created by Peter Lindbergh, one of the most renowned international photographers, was presented in Paris. With the 2017 edition, which follows the one signed by Annie Leibovitz in 2016, the German master becomes the only photographer to have been called upon to create the Pirelli Calendar for the third time, after the 1996 shot in California in the El Mirage desert and the 2002 made in the Studios of Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles. In 2014, moreover, it was Lindbergh again, together with Patrick Demarchelier, who took the shots celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Calendar which, born in 1964, has reached its forty-fourth edition this year (taking into account some pauses in its publication) .
The photographer himself explains the leitmotif of the 2017 Pirelli Calendar (www.pirellicalendar.com): “In an era in which women are represented by the media and everywhere as ambassadors of perfection and beauty, I thought it was important to remind everyone that there is a different beauty, more real, authentic and not manipulated by advertising or anything else. A beauty that speaks of individuality, of the courage to be oneself and of sensitivity”. The title "Emotional" chosen by Lindbergh therefore wants to underline how the intent of her shots was to "create a Calendar not on perfect bodies, but on sensitivity and emotion, stripping the soul of the subjects, who then become more naked than naked".
To represent her idea of natural beauty and femininity, Lindbergh portrayed 14 internationally renowned actresses: Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara, Helen Mirren, Julianne Moore, Lupita Nyong'o, Charlotte Rampling, Lea Seydoux, Uma Thurman , Alicia Vikander, Kate Winslet, Robin Wright, Zhang Ziyi. He also joined the actresses with Anastasia Ignatova, professor of Political Theory at MGIMO, the Moscow State University of International Relations. Choices that bear witness, once again, to Lindbergh's love for cinema and which have made the 'Cité du Cinéma' of Saint Denis, one of the most important film production studios in Europe, the natural location for the traditional gala in which the new Calendar is presented.
“The goal – explains Lindbergh – was to portray women in a different way: I did it by calling actresses who have played an important role in my life and photographing them by getting as close as possible to them. As an artist I feel the responsibility to liberate women from the idea of eternal youth and perfection. The ideal of perfect beauty promoted by society is an unattainable goal”.
The shots were taken between May and June of this year in five different locations: Berlin, Los Angeles, New York, London and the French beach of Le Touquet. The result is a Calendar made up of 40 shots – between portraits and environments – taken not only in the studio, but also in various metropolitan corners and open-air sets, as in the case of the streets, fast food restaurants and decadent hotels in downtown Los Angeles, Times Square in New York, the Sophiensaele Theater in Berlin, studio rooftops in New York and London and Le Touquet beach.
But it is not only cinema that characterizes Lindbergh's works. The photographer has also always been known for his ability to bring elements related to the industrial environments of his childhood into his photos. And it is for this reason that, with the initial objective of transferring aspects linked to technology and industry to the Calendar, Lindbergh also took numerous shots during the production at the Pirelli industrial center in Settimo Torinese, the technologically most advanced of the group. The experience gave birth to a series of photographs on the world of automation and innovation, so suggestive and powerful that – as the photographer himself recounts in the interview published by the Pirelli World magazine – “in the end we decided to separate the paths of the two set of shots and use those of the factory to create an independent project in the future, separate from that of the Calendar".
The "behind the scenes", the manufacturing, the stories and the protagonists of the 2017 Pirelli Calendar can be discovered on the dedicated website www.pirellicalendar.com, the recently renewed platform that allows you to travel through the history of over 50 years of "The Cal"™ through films, interviews, photographs and unpublished texts. Among the exclusive contents of the new edition, the Making of The Cal ™ section which tells the process of conception and realization of the artistic work of the great photographer and his team. The Icons section will also be enriched with new exclusive interviews with the protagonists of the 2017 Pirelli Calendar.
Peter Lindbergh explains how in the Calendar he wanted to portray women and the idea of beauty in a completely different way from how advertising offers them.
From what idea does this Calendar come about?
“I wanted to use the 2017 Calendar to advocate for a different kind of beauty. The current system proposes a single type of beauty, strongly linked to youth and perfection, since it is a system based on consumption. But this idea of beauty has nothing to do with reality and with women. I therefore wanted to convey another message through the Pirelli Calendar, namely that beauty is much more than what advertising offers us today. The goal was therefore to portray women in a different way: I did it by calling actresses who have played an important role in my life and photographing them by getting as close as possible to them. Already from the first photographs I realized that it worked. I think it's amazing to look at people like Nicole Kidman, who was the first one I shot, in a totally different way. It's a sensational experience to watch someone looking at you through the camera and create a direct connection with them, having a unique experience, like never happened to me before. When Nicole, after an hour or two of shooting, said “I don't know why I'm having so much fun…nobody has ever photographed me like this…nobody has ever seen this part of me and it's beautiful” she summed up the essence of it I wanted to do with the 2017 Pirelli Calendar: I wanted to portray women not through their perfection, but through their sensitivity and their emotions. This is why I gave this edition of the Calendar the title 'Emotional': not an artificial perfection, but the real world and the emotions behind these women's faces”.
Why black and white?
“If you photograph something in black and white, you attribute to the subject a different reality from the true one of the color world: you interpret reality by mixing black and white to obtain shadows, lights and shapes. I think black and white is the reduction and transformation of reality into something, it's the first small step to move away from something normal or real towards something more interesting, which is not real".
Is technological innovation affecting your work?
“No, because I defended myself. Today's young photographers don't even know what it's like to use an analog camera. I know the world of film very well and I didn't want a digital camera. I was perfectly happy the way it was. Then over time I learned that digital is great in many ways, apart from two. The first is that the digital image is too sharp and loses its softness and emotion. For this I use Photoshop to reduce the digital effect. Second, the most annoying thing about working with a digital camera is that it turns the shoot into a collaborative effort. Every time I stand in front of a subject and take a picture the image appears on a screen in the next room, with ten people watching, judging and advising… This way of photography completely destroys the intimacy between the photographer and the subject . What interests me is the relationship with the subject, because this is where beautiful photos are born and shooting in digital prevents me from establishing this special type of relationship".
The 2017 Calendar, as happened in 2002, bears witness to his love for cinema. What is the relationship between photography and cinema?
“It's related to the concept of 'time', which is very difficult to make visible in photography even though photography is all about time. Because it stops time. They always ask me “why don't you want to make movies?” and I answer that yes, maybe I would like to, but that's not my main concern”.
