HELMUT NEWTON, AGENT PROVOCATEUR

—“I like reaction, it’s what I look for. I don’t like sweet and gentle. I have no desire to provoke, but I do need certain subjects if I am to create new photographic effects and visual tensions.” (Helmut Newton’s words are taken from José Alvarez’s book, , published by Éditions Grasset). Newton’s style is summed up in these remarks. The tensed muscles of unsmiling women; interplays of dark and light, of eroticised accessories; an air of danger. The photographer Sophie Bramly, author of , sees this amalgam as “an incredible prowess”: “Newton used the erotic tropes that objectify women while subverting this objectification to find fantastic female empowerment. This leaps out in the series. These women are photographed on an empty street, after dark. Normally they should come across as vulnerable, but you can see from the way they stand that they’re afraid of no one.” Sociologist Frédéric Godart is convinced that “behind these[a 1974 film directed by Liliana Cavani, with Charlotte Rampling, who shortly after posed naked for Newton]. There is something darker. This notion of a deeper subcontext is all the more compelling as the model challenges us to understand the darkness of the image.”