Pieter Hugo’s New Portraits Seize the Confidence and Fragility of Youth

In late 2017, photographer Pieter Hugo was engaged on a trend story in New York with Midland, a casting company that scouted fashions for the editorial. Taking a look at their images, which hung in a grid on the studio wall, Hugo was struck by the mesmerising mixture of street-cast fashions. Stripped of hair, make-up, and wardrobe, what remained was a compelling assortment of bizarre faces that embody the fascinating paradox of youth, combining each confidence and fragility.

Championing fashions who defy typical notions of magnificence, Midland administrators Rachel Chandler and Walter Pearce have lengthy advocated for an aesthetic shift in trend that might deliver these idiosyncratic faces to the forefront of trend. The truth is, Chandler informed Hugo, “Walter’s dad mentioned the children we forged are the sort who’d have gotten the shit beat out of them at his faculty in Midland, Texas. So it was the right identify.”

Hugo partnered with Midland to create Solus Vol. 1, a private sequence of portraits photographed in London, Paris, New York, Cape City and Johannesburg between 2019 and 2021. The photographer – who’s finest recognized for his photograph books The Hyena and Different Males, Nollywood and Kin – issued a quick to the fashions instructing them to “are available your individual garments with as little branding as attainable, monochrome and block colors preferable”. As soon as they arrived in his studio, he requested them to “merely current your self and look me within the eyes.” In doing so, they may let down their guards, revealing their true selves and providing moments of unguarded innocence and unassailable poise.

The fashions intuitively understood the task, with many going as far as to be utterly nude. For Hugo, a Gen-Xer who got here of age throughout a profoundly nihilistic period, their company and idealism have been an indication of how occasions have modified. On the similar time, different issues reminded him that some issues have stayed the identical: adolescence as a time of self-discovery and craving to slot in; a interval marked by a profound want for understanding who you’re and the place you belong. 

With Solus Vol. 1, alternatives from which are actually on view at Stevenson Gallery in Amsterdam and picked up within the new e book from RM Editions, Hugo provides a charming take a look at what it means to redefine magnificence, attraction, intercourse, and identification in our courageous new world.

“Just a few years in the past, I began getting approached by luxurious manufacturers to collaborate with them or shoot promoting campaigns for them. It wasn’t one thing I purposely sought out however after I began doing it initially, I actually loved it. It was a pleasant change of tempo in comparison with my private work, that are intense, solitary pursuits. I’m typically away for lengthy intervals of time and don’t have a gaggle of individuals I’m working with reflecting on the work as I’m creating it. There’s no clear goal; it’s a way more ethereal course of, for lack of a greater phrase.

“After I began doing trend and industrial work, I loved the collaborative side of it, the place a gaggle of persons are working in direction of a typical purpose and there’s a dialogue in regards to the work when you’re making it. It’s resolved a lot faster: you shoot one thing and it’s out within the publication or on a billboard, whereas the non-public work typically takes years to make, and when you end, it’s nonetheless a few years earlier than it will get proven in a gallery or a museum. So there was one thing of a fast repair – you’ll discover I’m utilizing the previous tense – doing this work. As an artist, I’ve at all times interrogated my medium; I give it some thought as a lot as I work in it, its implications and potentialities. At some stage after having spent a little bit of time within the trend world, I began preparing to take a look at it with a extra vital eye and make work that existed inside that realm however actually spoke about that. 

“I used to be wanting on the grid of casting images taken by Rachel Chandler at Midland on the wall, and there was one thing in regards to the typology of those faces that was very clear and an aesthetic was coming via. All fashions are atypical, in any other case they wouldn’t be fashions. They’ve some type of preferrred, a distinction, or uniqueness that capabilities on many ranges. In that grid, I noticed the opportunity of one thing greater than what was occurring within the trend story that we have been doing. I realised that if you happen to moved these photos into a unique context, they might have rather a lot to say about concepts of magnificence, commodification, distinction, and uniqueness.

“I photographed so many individuals for the sequence, typically at a loopy tempo. It was exhausting to have a stream of sustained engagement with all of the people who I photographed however I believe that a lot of these fashions intrinsically understood that what I wished them to do is to be themselves and current themselves with out artifice. A number of the individuals I photographed are fairly established fashions and have been instantly placing poses. The toughest factor was to get individuals to show their physique and look straight on the similar, however not smile or scowl – simply be as impartial as attainable and by some means within the technique of doing that, additionally try to get some vulnerability.

“There’s a bizarre paradox of youth, the place on one hand you’re extremely self-conscious and impressionable however on the similar time you’re satisfied you realize the whole lot and also you most likely do. You typically have a knowledge that’s actually on the sting of your life: you might have conviction earlier than it’s mediated by expertise and nuance. These youngsters are a part of a worldwide group and have a self-confidence, worldliness, and connectivity, which I didn’t have. I believe that’s partially residing in an period with the results of social media. You’ve gotten a persona with your folks, a persona along with your colleagues, and a persona that you simply venture via no matter platforms you interact with the world, whether or not it’s TikTok, Instagram, or no matter, shaping an identification. The expertise of adolescence and youth is so totally different to mine from 25 years in the past – however then once more, it isn’t.”

Pieter Hugo: Solus Vol. 1 is on view via 22 October 2022 at Stevenson Gallery in Amsterdam.