“Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008”

Hoping to beat the crowds, we attended the National Portrait Gallery’s popular “Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008” in the mid morning, a time we thought most tourists are polishing off their breakfasts and locals are happily lounging in bed reading the Saturday FT. No such luck; the highly-promoted photography exhibit has received much fanfare on both sides of the Atlantic. The show successfully indulges our fantasies about today’s heroes, vocalists and actors whose faces have become as acutely familiar to us as ours are a blurred mess to them.

The first part of the exhibit is an education in early twentieth-century modern art: black-and-white photographs taken by the likes of Man R. are now sepia in tone and portray the celebrity in still life. Later photographs taken by the exhibit’s most celebrated photographer, Annie L., similarly portray the subject staged and in costume but in live-action shots. Whereas the first set of photographs are self consciously still-life portraits, the second is a celebration of the star in his or her most natural state: directing a movie, acting, smoking, or simply luxuriating in popularity.

Although not the most beautiful photograph in the exhibit, my favorite was Jonas K.’s “Run DMC”, a portrait of the rap band coolly cruising in the Hudson. The photo pokes fun at the over-the-top lifestyle celebrities lead, as depicted in shows like “Pimp My Ride” and “House of Style” (wow, I’ve really dated myself, haven’t I?). Anyone can look good in a high-end designer gown with the help of good lighting, a talented make-up artist and years of plastic surgery culminating into the perfect body and face, but how many celebrities would agree to floating in the Hudson as subjects of an ironic celebrity portrait?