L’art de Perfection
Amsterdam Girls as Art – from Segretto’s Archive
A little while ago, I visited an exhibition at The Royal Academy in London. The theme was Abstract Expressionism. As I wandered from room to room I couldn’t help thinking about the exhibits in terms of my photographs of Amsterdam’s Window Girls (behind the curtain). I also couldn’t get the thought of ‘Never Mind The Pollocks‘ out of my head (that’s Jackson’s photo, if you were wondering). Or this graffiti in Trompettersteeg. It prompted me to go looking for ‘real art’ comparisons with some of my behind the RLD curtain photographs. Here are some examples.
Obviously, whoever virtue signalled with the graffiti had the approval of all the beautiful and adventurous window girls who’ve posed for me.
An Eye for Colour
Girl’s Eyes – after Franze Kline
Blue and Red on Black – after Mark Rothko
Study in Grey
Foetal Blue Girl – after Madison Moore
Dam Girl’s Thigh Gap – after Gilbert and George
After Andy and Marilyn
A Little Bit of Degas
More Degas
The first ‘behind the red curtain’ photo
It started (taking photographs, I mean) one day when I was about to leave the window of a girl I’d got to know quite well. ‘Would you like something to remember me by?’ she said.
‘Sounds good. What do you have in mind?’
‘Maybe you’d like to take a photograph.’
I liked the idea )and I was surprised) but I didn’t have a camera or a phone with me. When I’m out and about in the red light district, I only carry what I need and what I can genuinely afford to lose.
‘That’s okay,’ she said. ‘Bring your camera next time.’ And that’s what I did. Clever marketing on her part. Well, I took a dozen hastily posed photos. On the camera they didn’t look special but when I got home and loaded them onto my iMac I could see some potential. I played around with various filters and came up with what I felt were interesting images. Next time I visited Dam I took along some images (they looked lIke images of half a dozen different girls), I showed them to some of my “girlfriends” and asked if they would like to model for me.
‘Sure. Just don’t show my face!’
And the rest is history.
Is this all I’ve got? Oh no. Photos are spread throughout the pages and there are more over on Segretto’s Blog. And there’s more that I can’t publish.
The mask? It’s a Venetian ball mask. I sometimes take it with me. An hour in a girl’s room is an opportunity to mix sex with theatre. In this instance, however, it was to make the girl feel comfortable with the photography.
After Dora Carrington’s Spanish Landcape
Yeah. Right. Got it.
The Amsterdam Diaries 