It’s not till in the direction of the very finish of Walter Pfeiffer. In Good Company – the octogenarian artist’s new exhibition at Turin’s Pinacoteca Agnelli – that vogue pictures, in a proper sense, is launched. When it’s, it’s within the type of a triptych, three vividly colour-saturated portraits of the mannequin Eva Herzigová, sequinned clothes glowing in Pfeiffer’s digicam flash. In the centre picture, a goldfish in a plastic bag hangs from her wrist beside a garish, gilded purse.
Tracing six many years of astounding prolificacy, Pfeiffer’s first large-scale presentation in Europe exterior his native Switzerland makes no distinction between the non-public and the industrial in its curation, and though the images of Herzagová, taken for his first editorial for Vogue France when he was already in his 60s, are probably the most recognisably ‘fashion’, there isn’t actually a single picture amongst the 100 or so on show that wouldn’t sit fortunately inside the pages of an indie vogue journal in 2026.
What is a vogue {photograph}? “Does it have to have clothes in it? Some, maybe … maybe a bikini?” Pfeiffer tells AnOther, laughing. No, for him it’s extra about creating an environment than a literal depiction of clothes. Where garments do seem they not often take centre stage. Often they’re within the technique of being eliminated, revealing the physique beneath, or they’re a part of a witty visible joke: two pairs of stockinged legs showing from beneath an 18th-century portray, or the Breton stripes of a person’s long-sleeve T-shirt echoing the slats of the Venetian blind he’s caught peeking by way of. But even the pictures which eschew clothes – eschew folks even – appear to pre-empt the feel and eclecticism of recent vogue artwork course. One of the six rooms of the retrospective takes ‘accumulation’ as its theme: see, a tangle of blushing shell-on king prawns; humble potatoes, onions and bottled water on a kitchen work-top; or a Bacchanalian scene of sculptures which appear to be they’ve frozen mid-conversation, à la Toy Story. Curators Simon Castets and Nicola Trezzi’s exhibition textual content describes this as “an encounter between spontaneity and idealisation, between storytelling and celebratory anti-heroism” – which they attribute to the picture democratisation of social media. True sufficient, however for Pfeiffer, it’s simply Dada.
“I went to the School of Arts and Crafts in Zurich during the Swinging 60s, when everything was about young, young, young,” says Pfeiffer, in between mouthfuls of chocolate mousse. “But I was more interested in learning about what came before.” The legacy of Dada, which originated in that very same metropolis throughout World War One and took a hunter-gatherer, non-hierarchical strategy to image-making, struck a chord with the younger Pfeiffer. Before committing to pictures, he tried his hand at graphic design, at window dressing, illustration, even styling for purchasing catalogues. In Good Company opens with scans from years of scrapbooking which present stunning cut-and-stick layouts of photographs subsequent to hand-scrawled blocks of textual content. He’s nearly a one-man vogue magazine-maker in his personal proper, however, he tells me, “I have no time to read magazines anymore! The older you get, the quicker time goes. Maybe a quick look at Instagram, but otherwise I’m too busy working.”
Working always, and but he nonetheless thinks of himself as a dilettante. Pfeiffer spent a few years working beneath ‘outsider’ circumstances earlier than the institution got here flocking, however even after they did he maintained, in his view at the very least, beginner standing. “In Switzerland there is this tendency to think quite narrowly about these things: if you’re an artist you must be spotless and stay in your lane. But I always wanted to do different things. I didn’t want to be a one-hit-wonder. As long as it’s interesting, I’ll make it.”
Now, that distinctly liberated visible language of juxtaposition and the elevated banal (and that ubiquitous flash) might be seen far and huge throughout vogue – from the works of fellow Germanic photographers Juergen Teller and Wolfgang Tillmans, to Pfeiffer’s personal editorials and collaborations with luxurious manufacturers, together with Helmut Lang and Bottega Veneta. “I started working with Bottega Veneta because someone had told me that when they interviewed creative director Daniel Lee, he’d had all my photo books on the shelf behind him in his home,” Pfeiffer remembers, contemplating what it takes for him to be seduced by a vogue model. “So I thought – well, I want to make a portrait of him. And that started a relationship that became photos, drawings, books, an exhibition. It was a good collaboration, because he wasn’t just interested in boring models and neither am I.”
“I felt I always looked horrible. I remember going to Milan and seeing all the beautiful people buying shoes, and I just looked like a bum. But buying fabulous clothes – that made me feel better.” Aged 80, Pfeiffer nonetheless has a sure trendy panache about him – for the non-public reception of the Pinacoteca Agnelli present he’s carrying head-to-toe blue with a barely limp daisy caught by way of the zip of his polo shirt. This small gesture is a neat abstract of In Good Company’s premise: right here is an artist who by no means chased self-discipline, solely magnificence, and imperfect magnificence at that.
Walter Pfeiffer. In Good Company is on present at Pinacoteca Agnelli in Turin till 13 September 2026.