Paparazzi

Everyone knows these kinds of photgraphs from glossy magazines: snapshots of fast boats, dark sunglasses and dalliances. Whoever shows themselves on the beaches of Sardinia also acknowledges those others, lurking behind their cameras. Celebrities and paparazzi are symbiotically intertwined; they produce “secret images” in collaboration. Together with Corrado Calvo – one of the most famous paparazzi to date –, Armin Linke has published a selection of sequences from a conglomeration of 80,000 images from the early noughties. Within the image series shown in the publication, a different kind of logic becomes apparent that stands in contrast to the published image from mass media: Their staged character becomes obvious. Whatever is cut out of the situations shown in the magazine images only becomes evident in the sequential nature of the pictures. The photos thus unexpectedly become social documents.

Armin Linke, born 1966, Milan, is a photographer and filmmaker combining a range of contemporary image processing technologies to blur the border between fiction and reality. Currently he is guest professor at ISIA, Urbino, Italy. Corrado Calvo is one of the most famous paparazzi in Italy. He lives in Ticino, Switzerland.