March 28, 2024


Linda Evangelista portrayed by Steven Meisel in 1993, one of the photographs that will be part of the exhibition 'Steven Meisel 1993 A Year in Photographs', organized by Marta Ortega in A Coruña.
Linda Evangelista portrayed by Steven Meisel in 1993, one of the photographs that will be part of the exhibition ‘Steven Meisel 1993 A Year in Photographs’, organized by Marta Ortega in A Coruña.

Marta Ortega wants to continue her tribute to fashion photography with a new exhibition in A Coruña and, after the one dedicated to Peter Lindbergh, this time she will pay tribute to Steven Meisel. The 38-year-old non-executive president of Inditex has opted for the images of the 68-year-old New York portrait artist to be the next to be shown in the exhibition space at the Muelle de la Batería de A Coruña. The exhibition is titled Steven Meisel 1993 A Year in Photographs and will arrive in the city from November 19, where it will remain until May 1, 2023.

“Steven Meisel’s enormous talent and inexhaustible creative capacity have made him one of the most fascinating photographers of his generation,” says Marta Ortega in the press release released this Friday, July 8. And she adds: “Steven continues the legacy of other great masters of the past, with photographs that break through the surface to capture the true essence of his models. His work includes, without a doubt, some of the most powerful and influential fashion photography in history. For me it is a real privilege to bring to A Coruña such a special and exceptional exhibition that, in addition to expanding the rich cultural heritage that Galicia offers, will serve as an inspiration for those who are fortunate enough to spend some time in front of the extraordinary images of Steven Meisel” .

The husband of the non-executive president of Inditex, Marta Ortega, Carlos Torretta;  actress Naomi Campbell;  Marta Ortega, and fashion designer Pierpaolo Piccioli, during the social celebration prior to the opening of the Peter Lindbergh exhibition in A Coruña, Galicia, on December 1, 2021.
The husband of the non-executive president of Inditex, Marta Ortega, Carlos Torretta; actress Naomi Campbell; Marta Ortega, and fashion designer Pierpaolo Piccioli, during the social celebration prior to the opening of the Peter Lindbergh exhibition in A Coruña, Galicia, on December 1, 2021.Saskia Lawaks (Saskia Lawaks)

The exhibition will bring together images taken by the photography master over the course of 12 months of creative explosion in 1993, a decisive year in his career, which stands out due to his close collaboration with Vogue and in which he signed 28 covers and more than one hundred editorials for the fashion magazine. Within this production is the emblematic Anglo-Saxon Attitudes, starring Stella Tennant, Bella Freud, Plum Sykes and Honor Fraser and published in the British edition. In addition, you will be able to see more than a hundred classic portraits of men and women from the world of fashion and cinema such as Linda Evangelista, Carla Bruni, Naomi Campbell, Hamish Bowles, Kyle MacLachlan, Claudia Schiffer, Jaye Davidson, Barbara Streisand, Marlon Richards, Isabella Blow, Amanda Harlech or Twiggy.

Meisel began his career as an illustrator, but soon made the leap into photography. Snapshots of him have been published in Vogue (in fact, for 27 consecutive years he made the cover of the Italian edition, until 2015, —where he had the constant support of its director, the late Franca Sozzani—) and has carried out campaigns for firms such as Prada, Louis Vuitton, Versace, Alexander McQueen, Loewe… His name became known globally when, in 1992, he signed the images of Madonna’s then-controversial book gender, which he portrayed as a dominatrix and in massive orgies. In 2015 she signed the Pirelli calendar with the fetish as leitmotiv. In it she portrayed Karen Elson, Adriana Lima, Carolyn Murphy, Natalia Vodianova, Gigi Hadid or Candace Huffine.

Steven Meisel 1993 A Year in Photographs is organized with the personal support of Marta Ortega Pérez, whose admiration for the photographer sustains this collaboration and frames it within a long-term initiative that aims to bring first-rate cultural movements to A Coruña and, at the same time, bring the world closer to Galician cultural heritage”, states the press release.

Portrait of Marta Ortega by Steven Meisel for the cover of the economic newspaper 'The Wall Street Journal'.
Portrait of Marta Ortega by Steven Meisel for the cover of the economic newspaper ‘The Wall Street Journal’.

Meisel’s relationship with the Inditex group is very close, since for five years he has been in charge of the campaigns for the most ambitious collection of each season at Zara, the group’s flagship, and has signed several of its campaigns. In addition, she portrayed Marta Ortega for the cover of the economic newspaper supplement The Wall Street Journal last August, in one of the few interviews (and, even fewer, posed) that the current non-executive president of the group has granted. It is unknown for the moment if Meisel, a reserved and even hermetic man, allergic to interviews, will attend the presentation of the sample in A Coruña or any of the events surrounding the exhibition.

This will be the second exhibition that can be seen in the two restored buildings on the Batería dock, a large exhibition complex that the architect Elsa Urquijo —head name of the Inditex group— restored at the end of 2021 in just one month. There the city hosted, and with great success, the exhibition dedicated to Peter Lindbergh, a great fashion photographer and personal friend of Ortega, who died in September 2019 at the age of 74. His retrospective, made up of more than 150 images selected by Lindbergh himself, could be seen in the Galician city since December 2021 and its end was scheduled for February 28, 2022, but its success was such (it achieved more than 110,000 visitors ) which lasted until March 31.

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