Pic © John Stoddart, courtesy La Galleria
Exhibition: Flowers in a Dark Room & Dirty Little Pictures, La Galleria Pall Mall, London, until February 17 2009
Nobody familiar with John Stoddart’s snaps of the rich and famous could begrudge him his self-imposed title as a celebrity photographer. From stage-managed pictures of the Blairs in the back of a taxi to Daniel Craig, Bjork and Hugh Hefner, Stoddart’s clientele form a who’s who of A-listers.
Pic © John Stoddart, courtesy La Galleria
The biggest part of his portfolio, though, is devoted to the virtually anonymous – strippers, actors and the characters of the adult entertainment business. It’s a fascination inspired by Hitchcock and Polanski and formed by ancient frescoes in seedy Pompeii, followed by a discovery that Britain was the last country in Europe to make professional adult movies.
Pic © John Stoddart, courtesy La Galleria
Stoddart has honed a style perfect for capturing this titillating underworld – his more memorable takes include Elvis entertaining half-naked women and the likes of Liz Hurley and Amanda Holden sitting around in their undies – and Dirty Little Pictures is unsurprisingly “revealing” in its portraits of porn stars and the technicians who work with them.
Pic © John Stoddart, courtesy La Galleria
The set of 68 voyeuristic black and white images were taken during two years studying the sets of different movies, and they provide an over-18s accompaniment to Flowers in a Dark Room, his multi-layered primary exhibition which opens two hours beforehand.
Pic © John Stoddart, courtesy La Galleria
Based on Salome, a painting of the head of John the Baptist by the Italian master painter Caravaggio, it supplements triptych images from Stoddart’s career considering the fickle nature of fame with poems by John Armstrong.
Pic © John Stoddart, courtesy La Galleria
