Steidlville

Body Freedom is the latest chapter in Karl Lagerfeld’s ongoing photographic exploration of model Baptiste Giabiconi.Lagerfeld’s first portrait of Giabiconi in book form, The Beauty of Violence (2010), showed Giabiconi acting out an erotic seizure in a studio and toyed with the idea of nudity. Body Freedom liberates Giabiconi from the studio environment and tackles nudity full on: with enviable self-confidence and no shame, the nude Giabiconi plays before Lagerfeld’s lens. Body Freedom comprises two folio-size books in a slipcase, each embodying a different episode in Giabiconi’s development. The first shows him in the ruins of the Villa Adriana in Tivoli in 2008 (the ‘antique’); while the second presents more recent images of Giabiconi in contemporary architectural settings (the ‘modern’). Containing images taken over three years, Body Freedom is an exercise in the passing of time as seen through the male form, the transition from adolescence into manhood.