Fragile Beauty: Photographs From The Sir Elton John And David Furnish Collection
Fragile Beauty- opening imagination to the best and worst of the world. Enough to make you
dream.
The V&A’s collection, Fragile Beauty, was created in collaboration with Sir Elton John and
David Furnish. It is showing until January 5th 2025. The exhibition contains adult themes,
including depictions of substance use, death, nudity and sexual content.
The collection boasts photographs from 1950 until present, all from John and Furnish’s personal
collection. The title was chosen by John, as it “points to the vulnerability that he feels often
inspires creativity as seen”. Fragile Beauty evokes a certain vulnerability from the viewer that
allows the gallery to implant itself into your mind, photographs lingering and beckoning you
back to take a second look.
With an entrance fee set at 12 pounds, this collection allows you the chance to leave average life
in London behind, and start dreaming as you walk from room to room. Split into sections such as
Fashion, Desire, and Reportage, it whisks the viewer through from life’s most intimate moments
to widely publicized crises and events. The photographs presented live, breathe, and invite the
viewer to stare into them, captivating you and staying with you long beyond your V&A visit.
Featuring post-WW2 fashion through projects such as Frances McLaughlin-Oil work with Trans-
American Suits for Vogue, Melvin Sokolsky's Bubble Series, and William Klein’s Courrèges in a
box, the niche, angled and whimsical styles depicted demonstrate a deep love of fashion from the
collectors.
One photo that captures the attention of viewers is Dovima with Elephants by Richard Avedon.
This gorgeous photo shows Dovima (Dorothy Juba, the highest paid model of her time) posing
alongside elephants in Paris in Yves Saint Laurent’s first design for Christian Dior, opening up
the imagination to life at the peak of haute couture, and to Paris as a post-modern safari rather
than a simple city.
The Fashion section features planes, elephants, and goats milk, making you question with it
everything fashion should or shouldn’t be. Touching on post-coloniality, masculinity and men's
mental health, the collection also includes photos from Harley Weird “Boys Dont Cry”, taking us
on an unexpected trip to Senegal accompanied by the likes of Grace Wales and Frank Ocean.
Featuring Elvis Prestley, Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor, the collection also
showcases photography related to showmanship, glamour, and Hollywood's golden age. The
portraits of these inspirational and revolutionary artists and performers make one wonder how
being surrounded by icons of entertainment and inspiration themselves could shape your own creation and move you to produce amazing pieces.
John and Furnish are particularly fascinated by artists who suffered for their art. Apart from the
name, which evokes feelings of precarity in itself, feelings of suffering, vulnerability and the
questionings of identity are present throughout the collection, whether through art of those who
suffered, or art that calls the viewer to question himself identity and visibility. If this interests
you, you might want to stop by to view Susan Marisela’s Self Portrait, Francesca Woodman’s
Portrait of a Reputation or Gillian Wearing’s Self Portrait.
On the other hand, the collection also showcases many forms of passion and beauty, such as
through the form of red hot burning desire. The section on Desire is a sultry but sometimes subtle
collection of studio portraits, autobiographical documentary photos, homoeroticism and topics
once considered provocative or scandalous, now here mainstream in the V&A. It includes
everything from Sumo in Japan (Tomotsu Yano Young Samurai: Bodybuilders of Japan, mid
1960s) to devastating photographs related to the AIDS crisis in New York City.
In this section, you can’t miss Andy Warhol, featured throughout the whole collection, in his Self
Portrait and Self Portrait in drag (1980 and 1981). Jack Walls and Patrice by Robert
Mapplethorpe (1982) might also stand out, and Having Sex (Polaroids), New York 1999, must
also be mentioned. The latter photo captures Ryan McGinley and his boyfriend Marc. At first
glance it is unclear if McGinley really captured them having sex, but regardless, the intimacy of
the bedroom, the photos hung on the wall of each visitor who came in, are real and raw. The
collection features many other photos that transform the fragility of intimate, personal, or painful
moments into a creative act. For example, Cruising- seeking a sexual partner- became a creative
act in Sunil Gupta’s first photographic series, Christopher Street. The act of shooting-up, tending
to a gunshot wound, or smoking a cigarette underage are all transformed into statements,
political commentary and creative expression, through the lense of the photographers camera
(notably seen through photographs by Larry Clark and Mary Ellen Mark).
John and Furnish’s Collection is somewhat of an ode to the many facets of America in the 20th
Century. It features the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, the Gay rights movement in NYC, a
mention of Tupac, the meth and drug crisis of the Midwest and The Bible Belt and child
prostitution. Maybe it is not a celebratory ode, but instead one that calls for reflection and for the
questioning of your understanding of the human experience and where you stand within it.
This collection doesn’t push boundaries of sexuality and gender- pushing taboos and boundaries
can be left to 80s fashion photography. Here, the personal and impersonal, the celebrated and the
marginalized, all merge together, reaching out, grabbing you, as if screaming, I AM HERE. The
boundaries are not simply pushed, in this collection, they are made to be invisible. Perhaps what makes this collection so beautifully fragile is how we receive it.
Edited by Eleonora Fumagalli
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