Marco Glaviano Cindy Crawford (St Barth), 1991

Until 15 June 2019, Marco Glaviano's works are exhibited at the Space Gallery St Barth of jazz players in a book yet to be published

"My best work is this". Marco Glaviano does not indicate a twenty-year-old Paulina Porizkova, naked, hidden by large green and damp leaves. He doesn't point to Claudia Schiffer's deep gaze or a kiss sent from the lips of a very young Cindy Crawford with her eyes closed and a wild lock of hair on her face. You are about to inaugurate your new exhibition in New York. But it is not the works exhibited until June 15th at the Space Gallery St Barth/Soho to which the famous photographer refers, but to an unpublished book on which he began to work in 1965. "I've published 15 but not this one yet." The content? Portraits of jazz musicians. "My great passion".

His love for music blossomed when, in his twenties, he attended jazz festivals where he played the vibraphone and took photographs. "I'll show you a draft, I have it here, in the gallery". The portraits range from John Coltrane to Nina Simone. From Thad Jones to Quincy Jones. From Dexter Gordon to B.B. King up to the great Italians such as Antonio Faraò and Paolo Fresu. "These are important photos," he says proudly, flipping through the pages of a seemingly ready-to-print tome. And looking at the walls of the gallery where his exhibition of his would soon be inaugurated and filled by his admirers, he adds: "Jazz photographs are more important to me than those taken of supermodels".

Glaviano argues that there is no market for such a book. "If instead I make a book with women, everyone immediately wants it. It's unfair, but that's how it is". According to him, "Jazz is the most complex, innovative music ever. It is the most important art form invented in America. The problem is that they don't listen to it and the sales of jazz music in the world are practically zero.
 

Marco Glaviano Cindy Crawford (St Barth), 1991 and

Cindy KIss, 1991

Tell me if it's right. It is difficult to convey but I will publish it for my happiness and satisfaction". The book is not finished yet, he explains to us: "There is a little something to take away. Something to add. I think I will finish it within the year. I still have to take about twenty photos of important jazz musicians that I will meet soon".

Combining photography and jazz - "the two things I like the most" - Glaviano looks and thinks ahead. Like when as a lover of the darkroom ("marvellous, stupendous") he had anticipated the use of digital. "I waged a bit of war. For example, I was a consultant for Kodak and they fired me. I told them to stop investing in film because sooner or later it would run out. The CEO at the time turned red in the face. I was afraid he would get a heart attack. 'Film is forever. Digital will never happen', he said. And in fact now they are bankrupt. If only they had listened to me...".

Marco Glaviano Paulina Porizkova and 477 Bananas, 1986: Paulina Porizkova (New York), 1986 and

Paulina Porizkova and 32 Mickeys (Anguilla), 1987

According to Glaviano, a history lover, "one must never look back. Stopping at the past is counterproductive, but one must know and study it". In an age of selfies and image-sharing apps, he swears that photography, the one he's experienced himself, "is over. It's reborn in another way. Perhaps more important than ever. Photographs are taken with cell phones , social media have destroyed everything, they probably create something else, but they have torn apart what was before". Among other things, he continues, "there are no more such beautiful models", the ones he photographed in all poses and who have ended up on over 500 covers of magazines such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar but also on calendars for which people queued in front of New York bookstores just to get a copy.

Remembering those beautiful models like Paulina Poritzkova - 50 years old who without retouching (she doesn't need it) will be in the 2019 edition of the Swimsuit Issue of Sport Illustrated - Glaviano blurts out: "We are in a period in which influencers with a million followers on Instagram decide what is beautiful. If these are the women that the public likes today, it's over. But when they see the ones from before, everyone says... 'Ah! How beautiful'. They still recognize them. It's just that you can't do this anymore . It's not that beautiful women aren't there, but they don't make models. Maybe now they're even more beautiful than before. They're no longer accepted in fashion because they want them to be different. Beautiful women do other things. And they do good!".

Glaviano specifies that he speaks of beauty from a purely aesthetic point of view: "A woman can be beautiful and interesting in different ways and at any age. I'm talking about people we photographed because they transmitted a universal message in my opinion", which everyone likes as a beautiful sunset, a landscape, animals. The kind of beauty he thinks of, she continues, "I didn't invent it. In every museum you go, for thousands of years, [the artworks depict individuals] naked and beautiful for the times. So I don't understand why has suddenly become a problem. Like Michelangelo's David is the example of beauty in Italian sculpture".

Speaking of universal beauty, Glaviano recalls an anecdote. Early 80s. St. Barth, a small Caribbean island with white beaches "where fortunately I have spent a lot of my life. My favorite place in the world. I was at a restaurant with friends and models. I see Paulina enter. I could not look away. She was 16 years (it was at the beginning of his career, etc), when you see a woman like this you are ecstatic".

And the MeToo? "It seems to me a good cause, women must be respected and admired".

After four wives ("they always left me...I was always taken by my work"), three daughters ("all very good") and countless photographs taken, I ask Glaviano what it feels like to be surrounded by symbolic images of his career. "I envy myself," he says, bursting into laughter. "But I also feel like crying. I was young. I did many things. But I never stop working".

Working is what he advises aspiring photographers to do. "There are no secrets in life. You have to work. Talent takes you forward in your career but if you don't commit yourself so much you can't reach the goals you set for yourself". Recalling having had her first exhibition after the age of 50, she advises "not to put the cart before the horse" otherwise "the perspective, the meaning and the value of things are missing". He will talk about this, and his successful career, from 24 to 28 July to the public gathered at the end of July in Pierrevert, Provence, where he will be the guest of honor at an annual photography festival called 'Les Nuits de Pierrevertʼ. Maybe he also plays jazz.
 

Marco Glaviano is represented by Space Gallery St Barth/Soho. 

For more information, write to soho@spacestbarth.com 

or visit www.spacestbarth.com