A new exhibition at Prague City Gallery’s Stone Bell House arrays hundreds upon hundreds of Bruce Weber’s photographs. They represent the iconic body of work he’s created over a six-decade career, capturing his fashion photographs, magnetic images of celebrities, photojournalistic outings, and sweeping landscapes.
Installation view of “Bruce Weber: My Education” at Stone Bell House, Prague. Photo: Noe DeWitt, courtesy of Stone Bell House.
It’s an unlikely venue for a photographer who has long been entwined with American culture—from his portraits of such figures as Madonna and Joan Didion, to his commercial work with the likes of Calvin Klein, to his cinematic tribute to Chet Baker. Yet, over email, Weber, now based between Miami and New York, professed an abiding connection to the Czech capital, one that’s only grown since he first alighted on the city to photograph Heath Ledger for Vanity Fair 25 years ago.
“In his downtime, Heath would wander around the city taking pictures and chatting with people. I thought about him a lot when I was there this fall, his open and easy way,” he said about the late actor. “Prague has so many beautiful bridges over the River Vltava, which felt a nice metaphor for the connections we’re always trying to make as photographers.”
Bruce Weber outside the Stone Bell House, Prague. Photo: Noe DeWitt, courtesy of Stone Bell House.
At the retrospective, titled “My Education,” Weber’s variously energetic and intimate photographs make for a stunning juxtaposition against the gallery’s Baroque architecture.
Here, his images are grouped less by subject than textures: his reportage works butting up against celebrity portraits, his nature scenes meeting his dynamic nudes, his color images popping up amid his grainy black-and-whites. A separate room screens his films. Gathered in display cases and shelves around the gallery are the many, many books and magazines he’s filled with his photography. They’re testament to an ever-seeking eye.
Installation view of “Bruce Weber: My Education” at Stone Bell House, Prague. Photo: Noe DeWitt, courtesy of Stone Bell House.
“I could meet a farmer out in the countryside of Nebraska or be at Keith Richards’s house in the islands with his extended family—my curiosity is the same, and more often than not, something simple will happen that reminds me of what connects us on a human level,” he said.
Installation view of “Bruce Weber: My Education” at Stone Bell House, Prague. Photo: Noe DeWitt, courtesy of Stone Bell House.
Born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania in 1946, Weber rose through the ranks of the fashion world throughout the 1970s and ’80s, during which his work appeared in fashion catalogues and magazines including GQ, British Vogue, and Interview. He would go on to establish the rare practice that spans the commercial and fine art realms, while creating some of the most enduring, if not iconic, photographic images.
“I’ve never photographed somebody just because they were famous,” explained Weber. I have to be interested in what they’re passionate about, or how they put their own life experience into what they do.”
Bruce Weber, Elizabeth Taylor and Bonkers, Thousand Oaks, California (2005). Photo courtesy of the artist.
Throughout the decades, he’s shot models, athletes, musicians, actors, politicians, and writers; lensed campaigns for Versace, Louis Vuitton, and Abercrombie & Fitch; and produced four feature-length films. In latter years, he’s seen his work collected by museums including New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Installation view of “Bruce Weber: My Education” at Stone Bell House, Prague. Photo: Noe DeWitt, courtesy of Stone Bell House.
In 2017, Weber faced accusations of misconduct from no less than 15 male models, with at least two suits brought against him alleging inappropriate behavior. Weber denied what he characterized as “outrageous claims”; the cases were dismissed or settled out of court. The fallout saw a German museum scrap its Weber retrospective, with Vogue severing its relationship with the photographer “for the foreseeable future.”
The cancellation did not last long. In the time since, Weber has received assignments from Hercules and ICON magazines, dropped a new book, The Golden Retriever Photographic Society, the first dedicated to his images of dogs, and premiered his documentary on Paolo Di Paolo in Copenhagen. His latest Prague outing appears part of a reemergence—a reminder of an oeuvre that remains highly affecting.
Bruce Weber, Louise Bourgeois in New York, 1996. Photo courtesy of the artist.
“It doesn’t matter whether a particular photograph was taken as part of a fashion campaign, as a random photograph on the street, or for a magazine’s portrait series,” said the show’s curator Helena Musilová in a statement. “Everything is brought together by Weber’s ability to capture a profound emotional charge, moments of vulnerability, intimacy, intense experiences, joy, pain, fatigue, love, triumph…”
Installation view of “Bruce Weber: My Education” at Stone Bell House, Prague. Photo: Noe DeWitt, courtesy of Stone Bell House.
To Weber, the show also frames a personal journey, as hinted at in its title. He pointed out some wall text in the gallery that reads: “When a kid from a farm town in Pennsylvania ends up with his photographs on the walls of Prague City Gallery, you know he’s got a story to tell.” It’s a narrative he hopes might resonate, even this far from home.
“I hope I’ve successfully communicated what it’s like to travel and open my mind to the world around me,” he added. “I think it’s a common impulse to want to leave home and go away to the ‘big city,’ just as many of us want to return home and feel the earth beneath our feet. I don’t agree with Thomas Wolfe’s claim that ‘you can’t go home again.’ I believe we’re always going home.”
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
