PARIS — Tom Pecheux’s selection of Irving Penn photographs invites gallery-goers to ponder the meaning of beauty in a new exhibition poised to run at the Thaddaeus Ropac gallery in Paris.
Pecheux, a celebrity makeup artist who is the global beauty director for YSL Beauty, cherrypicked images for the show, titled “Irving Penn — Edge of Beauty.” It opens Saturday.
The collaborative exhibit co-created with Pace Gallery marks Pecheux’s curatorial debut. But he’s no stranger to art of all kinds, always running to galleries and museums whenever there is some down time.
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“I love photography,” said Pecheux, who worked with the late Penn on numerous occasions. For the “Edge of Beauty” show, Pecheux delved into the photographer’s archives in New York.
“I like the way Mr. Penn was creating images twisting beauty,” he said.
Part of Penn’s brilliance was his ability to capture the dark underbelly of beauty in sparse compositions.
Pecheux cited as an example the image appearing on the exhibit’s invitation. Called “Protractor Face,” the black-and-white print from 1994 shows a model’s face adorned with translucent measurement tools. It makes one ponder the notion of perfect beauty.
The show includes iconic as well as less-known beauty shots lensed by Penn during his 65-year tenure at Vogue.
“There is a picture we did for American Vogue, called ‘Splash,’” said Pecheux, who dreamed up the makeup look for the photo shoot, where a model’s face was doused with milk. “You just see a little bit of the black mascara and the red lips.”
Another image is “Bee on Lips” from 1995 that zooms in on a bee atop a models’ brightly lipsticked mouth. Originally it ran alongside an editorial about collagen injections, and plays on the expression “bee-stung lips.”
“Mascara Wars,” from 2001 shows a model’s bloodshot eye peering out from a white-powdered face, with two mascara wands poised on her lashes.
“There is this beautiful image where the face is covered with plastic, which reminds us of the incredible work that Pat [McGrath] did recently for the Margiela show, which was so beautiful,” Pecheux said.
The astonishing juxtapositions in Penn’s beauty shots caused a former editorial director of Vogue, Alexander Liberman, who helped launch Penn’s career, to call them “stoppers.”
Pecheux, who also selected two of the photographer’s images featuring dead flowers, said it was difficult to choose specific images for the exhibit, since beauty is so multifaceted.
“Beauty is not only makeup,” he said. “Beauty is not only the face of someone, but beauty is everywhere.”
Pecheux is fascinated by how artists’ minds produce sculpture, painting and photography.
“They create a different world,” he said. “Going to Greece, to the South of France, to America makes your body travel. When you go to see an exhibition, you make your brain travel. And I love that.”
“Irving Penn — Edge of Beauty” runs through July 13 at Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris’ third arrondissement.