by Ellen von Unwerth
Baccarat I, 2007
Artist: Ellen von Unwerth
Shot in 2007, this C-print sets a full costumed party inside a gilded, mirror-panelled ballroom under a vast crystal chandelier. At the centre a woman stands on the banquet table in a red corset, stockings and heels, a dark feather fan raised overhead, while guests in evening dress lounge along a long white table crowded with cakes, fruit, candelabra and glassware. Von Unwerth builds the whole frame like a scene from a decadent late-night soirée, cinematic in scale and saturated with Rococo detail.
Read as fine art, the picture is about spectacle and appetite, the banquet table doubling as a stage on which pleasure is performed for the room. The theme is theatrical excess, an aristocratic fantasy pushed to the edge of parody, with the standing figure as its knowing ringmaster rather than its object. Von Unwerth’s signature is this staging of glamour and abandon while keeping her subjects in command of the scene. The work suits a bold, design-led interior with room to carry its scale, and speaks to collectors drawn to fashion photography’s crossover into fine art. Ellen von Unwerth’s photographs are issued as limited editions, each print part of a controlled run.
Sizes & Editions
76.2 × 101.6 cm (30 × 40 in), C-Print, edition of 7
Size: medium
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