Sandro Miller “Homage: Malkovich and the Masters”

Yancey Richardson Gallery

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Yancey Richardson Gallery presents Homage: Malkovich and the Masters, an exhibition of photographs by Sandro Miller which pays tribute to some of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century while also celebrating the interpretive abilities of one of the most brilliant actors of our time.

Longtime friends and collaborators, Sandro Miller and John Malkovich first met in the late 1990s on a project for Chicago’s famed Steppenwolf Theater Company. In 2013 Miller proposed to Malkovich the concept of revisualizing forty-one images by legendary masters of photographic portraiture including Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, Irving Penn, Yousuf Karsh, Dorothea Lange, and Andy Warhol. As Malkovich comments in a Chicago Tribune article, “I come from a family of journalists and I had always heard the camera doesn’t lie. I looked at this as a chance to explore that.”

Prior to initiating the project, Miller spent a year intensively researching the original production of each famous image. Scrutinizing the lighting, setting, and dress, Miller even studied the contact sheets and interviewed the photographers whenever possible. Once thoroughly prepared, Miller and Malkovich sequestered themselves in the studio for several back-to-back 15-hour days with a highly coordinated team of set builders, a lighting designer, and a hair and makeup artist. With each set pre-lit and staged, Malkovich would study the original image for each upcoming photograph while having his hair and makeup done. Then, under the direction of Miller, Malkovich morphed from male to female, adult to child assuming with eerie exactitude the personas of Marilyn Monroe, Truman Capote, Andy Warhol, Mick Jagger, Lange’s Dust Bowl mother, Avedon’s beekeeper and Diane Arbus’s famous twins.

Just as Malkovich assumed the character and attitude of each portrait subject, Miller, in parallel fashion, adopted the style and approach of each photographic artist. Prior to the taking of all forty-one photographs, Miller also researched the papers and printing methods of each photographer to make final prints that matched the originals as closely as possible in size, finish, and tonal quality. It was important to Miller that, save for some minor retouching to add the graininess of some of the original early 20th century images, all the photographs were staged in the studio, created in the camera, and brought to life without the assistance of digital technology.

The full project, titled Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters, is currently traveling to multiple venues in Europe including Les Rencontres d’Arles Photographie and Camerimage Film Festival, Poland. Miller’s new book The Malkovich Sessions, to be released April 2016 by Glitterati Press, celebrates the results of this unique 17-year collaboration between Sandro Miller and his gifted muse, John Malkovich.