The artist is present. He looks like one of those rock stars he usually spends movies with, the elusive gesture, the spiky hair, severely black. In the picture, taken in London, he is 32 and has his career – and life – ahead of him. Almost four decades later, the only known self-portrait of Anton Corbijn finds its place in Artists and More Artists, the Dutch photographer’s (Strijen, aged 68) retrospective exhibition at the historic Château La Coste estate, which bills itself as the largest exhibition of his in France works never shown before, which also coincide with the Rencontres d’Arles festival. The matter has a crumb, firstly because the choice of works to be exhibited is up to him in a self-curated plan, and secondly because, allergic to categories and labels (the portrait artist is the only one who accepts), he has not hesitated himself to be counted among the artists and several artists he has portrayed for almost half a century. “Artist is an important word. To say it’s me seems a bit strong, although I suppose it’s true in a way,” he admits.
Set in the Provençal domain of Northern Ireland hotel magnate Paddy McKillen, the exhibition combines portraits from the Inwards & Onwards (2011), #5 (2017) and Star Trak (1996) series that have never been shown or were rarely hung. The choice of images (and their protagonists) is capricious, but above all nothing obvious: Richard Prince, Marlene Dumas, Jeff Koons, Ed Ruscha, Anselm Kiefer, Ai Weiwei, Lucian Freud, Steven Spielberg, Damien Hirst… “I have starting with the musicians and over the years I jumped into other creative disciplines: painters, writers, filmmakers, people I wanted to meet. “It enriched my life,” says the photographer, who answers via video call from the kitchen of his studio in Amsterdam. “Hence the title artists and more artists. It has its grace,” he attests.
It all the more leads us to believe that there must be at least one work by Anton Corbijn in millions of households around the world, even if the owner hasn’t even noticed it. War, The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree, Rattle and Hum, Warning Baby and Pop, by U2. Automatic for the People, by REM Viva Hate, by Morrissey. Into the Fire by Bryan Adams. Devil and Dust by Bruce Springsteen. Sublime Illusion by Eliades Ochoa. Diva, by Annie Lennox. Jumpin’ Jive by Joe Jackson. Boomerang, from The Creatures. S&M by Metallica. Air, by José Mercé. Seven Deadly Sins by Marianne Faithfull. “The Boatman’s Call” by Nick Cave. Undressed by the Rolling Stones. Vienna, by Ultravox. All Depeche Mode albums and singles since 101. The history of pop and rock over the last 40 years, told through the covers of iconic albums, sentimental education of several generations. “That’s what I’ve always liked about publishing in magazines and newspapers, that anyone can happen to see your work without having to intentionally look for it. And I understand that the same thing happens with album covers,” he admits.
The singer Joni Mitchell, 1999 in Santa Monica. Anton Corbijn
There is something of a reporter in his approach to his subjects, although he considers himself more of a documentarian than a photojournalist. “I think it’s nice to look at a picture and realize that time flies by. “This building doesn’t exist anymore, these cars aren’t made anymore… The good thing about a photograph is that it tells a story,” he affirms. And then he reflects: “I don’t know if we have a complete view of the subject, but it seems to me that in the 1970s and even in the 1980s we had more freedom in photography.” Today, people’s image is like that protected that everything goes uphill. Not long ago, someone in a review of one of my books asked how I was able to break through an artist’s PR filter to do a portrait. Well, public relations doesn’t exist in my world. If I have to ask a PR for permission, it means things aren’t working.”
Corbijn has officially been a photographer since 1979, when he moved to London aged just 24 and got a job on the team at the weekly New Musical Express. Over the next two decades, in the golden age of the music press and underground/modern cuché scene, The Face style portrays the scene’s princes – and paupers alike – experimenting with that harsh black and white, almost contrasting without Grey, which makes it the very recognizable and even more imitable brand of the house. His use of color, saturated to the point of unreality, also created a school: “When I shoot in black and white I know exactly what the photo will look like, but in color it is always unknown.” The truth is that I never really knew how to photograph in color. Not liking the result at first, I decided to try it in a more graphic way, using a technique popular in the 90’s called cross coloring, which produced bolder images. Now I’m less and less interested in that intensity.” He still uses analogue cameras with a slow shutter speed, capable of capturing the precise movement and gesture that corresponds to reality. “Imperfection is more like life than perfection,” he says. Let’s not even talk about digital technologies and artificial intelligence: “For me, the human factor is not only important, it is crucial in everything we do.” Humanity has this element of imperfection that I personally appreciate and celebrate. What I definitely wouldn’t like is that someone with a clever program could create a photo of Anton Corbijn, I would find that insulting. Perfection is overrated anyway. Only imperfection is human.”
The artist Jeff Koons, 2011 in New York. Anton Corbijn
The son of a Calvinist minister, the photographer admits that much of his aesthetic, and no little of his ethics, is a consequence of the austere and austere environment in which he grew up with almost no iconographic references. “Although I also think it was my way of rebelling against that environment. Sometimes I think I would have liked to have belonged to the Catholic Church, richer and more visually opulent,” he says. His latest exhibition, Icons (closed last April at the Handelsbeurs, the former headquarters of the Antwerp Stock Exchange), revolved around the need for transcendence and our relationship to death. The title here should be misleading. “Certainly not the kind of photographic work that most people expect me to do,” he says, laughing about this mix of his Cemeteries, a.somebody and Lenin, USSR series: never-before-seen images of cemeteries and funerary monuments that he captured has Italy in the early eighties, of the visual presence of the communist leader in the St. Petersburg of perestroika and of himself disguised as music legends who are no longer with us (Frank Zappa, Janis Joplin, John Lennon…). “What if I often think about death? Well, it’s natural to humans, part of the process of life. But be honest, I’m an optimistic person.
The bouquet featured on the cover of Depeche Mode’s latest album Memento Mori was found in a flower shop in a cemetery. The death of Andrew Fletcher, bassist, keyboardist and founding member of the British trio, in May 2022 still pains him. “They broke the news to me before it hit the press, I was a little shocked,” he says. “We had already started working on the visual concept of the album and I didn’t know what was going to happen. I saw Dave [Gahan] Yes Martin [Gore] Briefly during the funeral but we chatted later and they told me they were going to go ahead with the LP. The energy was different, of course, but strange as it may sound, we were in good spirits.” Corbijn has not only been the band’s official photographer since 101 (1989), but also acts as artistic director, ideologue of their iconography (including logo), Director of her video clips and creator of the visual montages of her concerts. They call it the Fourth Depeche: “In one of the interior shots, where Martin and Dave are seen from behind against the New York skyline, three shadows are projected onto the floor. It’s my way of making Andy feel like he’s still there.”
The photographer has to chain another zoom in less than five minutes, he warns, and we haven’t talked about his second job, film directing. He began making video clips in 1983 “without the faintest idea how to use a film camera” and eventually signed onto a handful of acclaimed feature films: Control (2007), a biographical portrayal of legendary Joy Division singer Ian Curtis; The American (2010), honoring George Clooney; The Most Wanted Man (2014), Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last role before his death; Life (2015) about the friendship between James Dean and photographer Dennis Stock and Spirits in the Forest, a documentary that follows six Depeche Mode fans on their journey to the final concert of the Global Spirit tour in Berlin. “I think I had to somehow prove to myself that I was capable of directing a film. I’ll be premiered another documentary soon, let’s see what happens.”
The members of Coldplay photographed by Corbijn in Venice Beach, California in 2013. Anton Corbijn
Patti Smith and Joni Mitchell. Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger. Siouxsie Sioux and Neneh Cherry. Kurt Cobain and Johnny Cash. Kate Bush and Kylie Minogue. On his social networks, Corbijn congratulates the birthdays of the living and commemorates the anniversaries of the deceased, always with the caveat of his goal: “Unfortunately, people die.” It’s a reason like any other to upload your portraits to Instagram, although it’s enough that I like the photo. And I have many to choose from.” Of course, he won’t escape this alive without answering the question: And these new stars of current music, the Rosalía, the bad rabbit, aren’t they interesting for you? “I come from a different time and I think my life would repeat itself. Yes, Harry Styles seems like a great guy and he would definitely look great in front of the camera. In fact, we’ve ever talked. From young musicians who take care of photographers of their generation. I’ve already photographed too much.”