Library Research
Pentax Calendar, 1980 by Guy Bourdin
In the photo you can see an elegant, clean room. It is probably night, because the place is a bit dark. There is an interesting light coming from the right side of the image. Perhaps it is a car going by and the car lights are coming through the window, which makes a picture look gloomy, and creates shadows, although the photo in general is not highly contrasted. There are grey/blue toned four chairs and a sofa, they are kind of baroque-ish, luxury furniture, made of silk fabric, so the light coming on them makes it look expensive and gives to the photo some Hollywood glamour look. When you first see the photograph, you notice two things. The first one is a woman, who’s wearing black, silky material dress, her lips are red, she has dark hair. Her face is quite intense, her hands are roughly grabbing a head of a figure, it is not really clear if it is a man or a woman. The silhouette is also wearing a black, shiny material. He/she is bending down on knees. The woman’s face and the figure’s posture makes it look erotic. The second thing you notice is the fallen chair in the right corner. It gives the image more sexuality, wildness.
The photograph instantly reminded me of David Lynch’s movie “Blue Velvet”, maybe because the model in the picture looks a bit like Isabella Rossellini or that the character she played wanted to be dominated. Although the movie is full of strong sexual and violent content and the woman in the picture is not being gentle, the whole frame does not look vulgar. It looks really theatrical and delicate, but it is far away from fake, because woman’s face is really real, really spot-on. The fallen chair makes one wonder what happened in the room and even sharpens the erotic feeling going through the photo. The title of the photographs let us think about the context of the photo, in what kind of calendar it was published. Being made in the 80′s it just plays along even more with the “Blue Velvet” which now is considered as 80′s cult movie, because of the dark erotic vibes. The light coming through makes it look mysterious, as mentioned, maybe the car is going by and that’s the only time the room gets some light, it can be assumed that the lights in the room are turned off, so this makes it look like a secret, and the figure looks like hiding in woman’s body. The image looks very dramatic, mysterious and high-fashion. As well as other Guy Bourdin’s photographs, this one is full of passion and sexual tension, but it’s not that shocking or eccentric as other images he has made. This one is very subtle, but also very powerful and ardent.