Guy Bourdin In New York: A Love Letter To America

TEXT BY SHELLY VERTHIME ALL ARTWORK COPYRIGHT THE GUY BOURDIN ESTATE, 2023, COURTESY OF LOUISE ALEXANDER GALLERY Inspired by Americana while drawing on wide-ranging sources, these photographs by Guy Bourdin are part of a rare compilation of a body of work that includes beautiful and diverse images, spanning more than three decades spent on the East and West Coasts. Bourdin was very much a product of his time, yet his legacy has proven to be timeless. New York is where it started. As early as the 1950s and through the end of the 1970s, New York became his dream studio, the perfect canvas, with Manhattan’s skyline, bridges, huge avenues, and dark, empty streets. The hyperreal colors and the interplay of mysterious light and shadow transformed his imagery into a Surrealist fantasy. Bourdin explored the realms between the absurd and the sublime, exploiting chance effects and unexpected juxtapositions, while discovering the…