UNDER THE INFLUENCE
Th(e) Influencer is an archive of references and sources for creative decision makers.

Think of it as a daily reference for advertising and creative departments, photographers, production companies and anyone involved in branding, corporate identity or marketing and development. Part of an ongoing series by Beatrice Dupire, who has worked as a curator with emerging and established photographers like Herb Ritts and Mario Sorrenti, Th(e) Influencer reports on visual trends in contemporary art and fashion photography. The project, which is published bi-annually, is edited by Dupire, Marc Balet and Florence Rolando. Balet worked with Andy Warhol as creative director at Interview for 11 years and is partner and creative director of Mixed Business Group, whose clients include Yves Saint Laurent, Barneys New York and Shanghai Tang. Rolando is a fashion consultant who has worked closely with emerging designers in their business development. What makes the book so exciting is that it features the work of both relatively unknown and established photographers.

According to Cheryl Kaplan, who provided the essays and text, the book “energetically retrieves and organizes information that lies at the intersection between art, fashion, film, design, architecture and culture as it is presented in magazines, newspapers and exhibitions.”

“I like to think of it as a visual weather vane that points you in a certain direction,” says Balet. “What you do with that information, of course, is entirely up to you.”

This season’s report, an active visual lexicon accompanied by a series of essays, appears in two parts: Observatory and Compass. Readers can scrutinize 500 pages and more than 2,000 photographs, scanning material on a visual level in order to prompt new responses to the work. “Th(e) Influencer offers an intense and broad system of analysis meant to generate ideas in response to international visual culture,” says Kaplan. “As the lines between fields of discipline blur, it is clear that fashion also benefits from a reinvention of contexts. Just as our economies are increasingly swayed by multilaterial influences, so is our way of living and seeing.”

Observatory features three sections: Venom, No Exit and Experiments. Venom looks at beauty, horror and the instinct for evil. No Exit presents the city in isolation, examining the transformation of icons as well as a look at conflicting versions of the self. Experiments focuses on extremelooking, altered states. Compass examines the long-term effect of the documentary and invented realism as it plays out in three sections: Primitive, Seeking the Real and The Natural World.

“Th(e) Influencer comes with a CD that includes all of the images you see in the book,” says Balet.

“The idea is to excite creative people to look deeper into the visual landscape.” Then there’s the matter of the parenthesis around the “e” in Th(e) Influencer’s title. If it reminds you of an eye, so much the better since Th(e) Influencer intends to cast its eye on culture. What you see in the images it projects is up to you.

—M.D.