The Bank Austria Kunstforum in Vienna presents the raw, timeless, chiaroscuro-tinged work of Anton Corbijn, who has been shaping popular culture since the 1970s, between photography, film and design.
He is one of the most influential protean artists of his generation. The Dutch-born artist, who lived in London for thirty years before settling in Amsterdam, takes over the spaces of the Bank Austria Kunstforum in Vienna. Throughout his career, Anton Corbijn - whose real name is Anton Johannes Gerrit Corbijn van Willenswaard - has left his mark on the worlds of music, film, literature, design, art and fashion with his recognizable signature. " The sediments of reality in these portraits - fragments of landscape and architecture, various accessories or (often seemingly absurd) settings - are shaded by the photographer in search of an elusive world imbued with a melancholy twilight," explains Ingried Brugger, the museum's director. And that's the whole point of the "Favourite Darkness" exhibition, which focuses on this very obvious darkness, bringing together 200 legendary works while celebrating the artist's 70th birthday on May 20.
Dark icons
The museum space traces his career over five decades, starting in London with his first shots for NME magazine in the early 1980s. Anton Corbijn quickly expanded his field of action, reinventing rock imagery. He created album covers and music videos, such as Heart-Shaped Box, Nirvana's latest with Kurt Cobain, for which he won an MTV Video Music Award. We owe him a myriad of striking images of rock, jazz and pop singers, musicians and bands (Miles Davis, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Björk, Johnny Cash, Coldplay...). U2 and Depeche Mode are undoubtedly the best-known. He designed the iconic visual aesthetic that has been their trademark for almost forty years. Not forgetting those of Joy Division, who were the subject of his first feature film Control (2007), retracing the life of Ian Curtis. He has also photographed many prominent personalities (Gerhard Richter, Lucian Freud, Nelson Mandela, Ed Ruscha, Ai Weiwei, Kiki Smith, Jodie Foster...).
High-contrast black and white
In his creative process, Anton Corbijn breaks down masks, sculpting shadows through light to turn his subjects into veritable spectral figures. His raw, grainy black & white imbues textures and contrasts, revealing the intensity of his models' expressions and emotions. This visual poet always remains focused on their intimacy, imperfection and humanity, the better to escape codes and capture a mystical moment, suspended in time. He achieves these effects by using a slow shutter speed that highlights a blur of movement in the frame. The visual language of this pastor's son is often marked by the influence of religious iconography, reduced to simple yet profound and mysterious forms. Anton Corbijn succeeds in capturing their authenticity, placing them in unlikely and unusual settings.
From still image to motion
While the exhibition also features lesser-known or previously unpublished images, the aim of the Bank Austria Kunstforum in Vienna is to highlight the links between his photographic and cinematographic work and the history of art. Vienna's Gartenbaukino is also taking part. This cinema, considered one of the oldest in the Austrian city, is presenting a retrospective of his work as a director, which also includes The American (2010), starring George Clooney, Un homme très recherché (2014), his final film with Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Life (2015), starring Dane DeHaan as James Dean and Robert Pattinson as Dennis Stock, photographer and member of the Magnum agency.
"Anton Corbijn - Favourite Darkness
Bank Austria Kunstforum, Freyung 8, Vienna (Austria)
Until June 29, 2025
