Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.05.2016, Qupperneq 42

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——— 2014 ———
In 1995, photographer Gavin Evans
was commissioned by Time Out
magazine in London to shoot Da-
vid Bowie during the recording of
‘Outside’. The results were a series
of distinctive portraits that be-
came widely used and well-known,
and are currently on display in
Harpa’s new fourth-floor gallery.
“David was working with Brian
Eno at the time,” recalls Gavin. “He
was feeling very productive and
positive. I got him at a great time.”
During their one-hour session,
they tried a range of different
poses, expressions and lighting,
sometimes with suggestions or
pointers from Gavin, or with im-
provisation from his subject. In
some shots, David shushes the
viewer, or calls to them, his hands
cupped around his mouth.
“There was play involved, and
seriousness,” says Gavin, flicking
through the sequence of images on
his laptop. “At one point, I genu-
inely couldn’t hear him, so that
was when he shouted. Then, he
switched to the ‘shh!’ pose. People
really liked those images because
he was engaging the viewer so di-
rectly, I think.”
Blackstar
But the show’s central image is
something darker—a close-up
shot in which Bowie gazes at the
viewer with a vulnerable, almost
existential expression. It’s a par-
ticularly humane portrait of the
singer that’s very much at odds
with the stylised characters for
which he became famous.
“When I looked back at these
ones,” says Gavin, “I thought: ‘I’ve
never seen him like this before.’ I
don’t mean photographically, but
in himself. I think he was very
much allowing himself just to be.
He wasn’t playing the public perso-
na—he was being less controlled,
in that way.”
Two years later, Gavin got an
email from Bowie’s manage-
ment about the image. “At first I
thought, ‘Oh shit, are they going
to ask me to stop using it?’” he re-
calls. “But as I read further down,
it said that this was David’s favou-
rite image of himself. He wanted
to hang it in his Manhattan office,
behind his desk. I thought, ‘Hang
on, he’s connecting with this im-
age?’ Some of the other shots from
the session, like the shouting and
‘shh!’ images, are perfectly good
shots, and I can see why people
like them… but the one he chose
had qualities that made it very per-
sonal for me. The fact that he felt it
so personally as well, and acknowl-
edged that it showed him—it’s a
huge compliment, I suppose.”
Blue-eyed boy
Despite the naturalistic look of the
shoot, Bowie still had some cre-
ative input. “When we first met,”
says Gavin, “he was wearing loaf-
ers and chinos—I was quite sur-
prised how casually dressed he
was. But then he brought out these
blue contact lenses, and I thought:
‘Ah, here’s the twist.’ When people
see the photographs now, they of-
ten ask why we did the shoot with
the blue contacts, because his eyes
were such a distinctive part of his
look. That was all him—he was
still playing with his image.”
Getting behind his subjects’ pro-
jected image has long been a part
of Gavin’s approach. “My work is
always about trying to strip away
the star quality surrounding some-
one,” he says, “to reveal the person
in a way the viewer can connect
with. It’s always my personal re-
mit. These people are, behind it all,
just people. And I want to find a
way in.”
1995 was also the year Gavin
shot Björk. “That shoot was five
minutes,” he smiles. “It was meant
to be an hour. I remember at the
time thinking there was some-
thing magical about this young
woman. She came in, and I did six
pictures, and then she said: ‘By-
eee!’ And that was it. She was gone.
But that was her.”
“I shot Iggy Pop and had 45 min-
utes with him,” he continues, “and
afterwards, put something like 146
images on the table and thought:
‘Which one?’ There was such a
range. He looked like a young boy
in some, and he looked completely
demonic in others. He looked like
everything. I went to the client
and said: ‘Let’s run the whole lot.’
There’s no point in asking, ‘Which
one is Iggy Pop?’—because they
were all Iggy Pop. There’s never a
single, definitive image of anyone.”
‘Bowie: The Session’ runs at Harpa’s new
fourth-floor gallery space until the end
of August. Entry is 1500 ISK.
SHARE: gpv.is/gavine
Gavin Evans
On Photographing Björk, Iggy Pop & David Bowie
By JOHN ROGERS Photos by ART BICNICK
Art Pop Icons42The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 5 — 2016