The last week of April, Hong Kong played host to Liberatum, a cultural event that gathers artists, musicians, filmmakers and visionaries from a menagerie of disparate creative disciplines for three days of enlightening conversations and performances. The festival, founded 11 years ago by Pablo Ganguli, has previously been held in Turkey, Morocco and India, and featured the likes of Italian Vogue editor-in-chief Franca Sozzani, Courtney Love and Kirsten Dunst. Highlights from the Hong Kong edition included talks from Pharrell Williams and producer William Orbit, Nobel Laureate Sir V.S. Naipaul and Paul Schrader, among others. And while the city was abuzz with chatter about the above-mentioned superstars’ lectures, the festival’s exhibition, held in the Lane Crawford offices, was not to be missed.
Spread across the Chinese mega-retailer’s 29th floor, the exhibition—which included everything from cellist Gerald Peregrine playing while locked in a cage to a display of emerging Chinese designer Six Lee’s end-of-the-world-inspired menswear collection to artist Svetlana K-Liè’s raw photographic expressions of contemporary femininity—was a veritable smorgasbord of creative fare. And at the center of the show was “Bourdin, Ses Films,” an installation of iconic fashion photographer Guy Bourdin’s rare cinematic experiments. Guy, who passed away in 1991, was famed for his dark, sensual photographs, which frequently appeared in French Vogue in the 1970s. He was a pioneer of surreal eroticism in fashion photography and his life, riddled with turmoil and loss (he was rumored to have mistreated his models, had a slew of affairs and endured the suicide of his wife and two girlfriends), was often as chilling as his images.
Renowned pianist, composer and co-curator of Liberatum, Rosey Chan worked with Shelly Verthime (who has been touring the films internationally since 2009) to create the installation, which consisted of fragmented clips from Guy’s fashion shoots as well as his home videos. Projected on three walls of a dark room, footage from a Geisha-inspired Vogue shoot or of nude models posing provocatively for the photographer’s lens was juxtaposed with shots of his children playing in the field and his wife lounging nearly naked by a waterfall, giving the viewer a peek into the icon’s complex psyche. Marking the first time the films were shown in Asia, the installation reverberated with compositions by Claude-Achille Debussy, Johann Sebastian Bach, Frédéric Chopin and Victoria Bond. Played by Rosey on loop, these harmonies served to enhance the films’ eerie melancholia. “I think when people walk in, even though these are not images of people they know, they can relate to the films because they draw signatures to one’s own memories, journeys and life. And with the music, I hope that they’ve walked away feeling that it’s touched them emotionally in some way,” the musician explained.
Meanwhile, filmmaker Mike Figgis—known for everything from American Gigolo to the short video presenting Lanvin’s H&M collaboration and a zealous Guy Bourdin fan—worked with Shelley to edit and compile the clips, which were shot between the 1960s and 1980s. “Watching the films, you start to get a sense of what his process was like and that’s interesting because when you just know the still photographs, that’s a very formal projection of someone’s work,” the auteur elucidated, adding, “The films are quite amateurish. They’re a bit out of focus, covered in dust and stuff. There’s something rather evocative about it—and he had such an influence on the fashion world. Every time I do a commercial, I get a moodboard that has a Guy Bourdin.” Naturally, Guy played a pivotal role exploring sexuality, and perhaps, one’s demons through photography during his reign, but, as Mike noted, ”He’s still a major visual contributor to our [contemporary] palate.” And it was indeed a treat to experience his tormented moving visions firsthand.