Viviane Sassen: In and Out of Fashion

“I’ve always had this love-hate relationship with fashion,” says the Dutch photographer Viviane Sassen, who has shot editorials for magazines like Purple, Dazed & Confused, and Numéro, and campaigns for labels such as Carven, Miu Miu and M Missoni over her 17-year career. “For me, it was always a way to express myself within the realm of photography.” “In and Out of Fashion,” the aptly title retrospective of Sassen’s work, is now on view at the André Leon Talley Gallery in the Savannah College of Art and Design Museum of Art. The innovative installation—instead of simply hanging framed photos on a wall, two projections reflected on two mirrors show a rotating slide show of 350 images—highlights the consistently quirky, and spontaneously energetic quality of her images that often trick the eye. Case in point: an image from a Miu Miu campaign in which extra appendages sprout from the model’s body. “Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I have an idea in my head,” explained Sassen. “It’s just there, popping up from nowhere.”

“In and Out of Fashion” is on display through May 4 at the Savannah College of Art and Design Museum of Art.