Book Description

Art icon Jeff Koons lying on a giant plastic ball, Richard Serra disappearing into one of his vast steel sculptures, "king of theater" Claus Peymann sporting a cardboard crown... ever since shooting his portrait of painter A.R. Penck in 1994, Oliver Mark (born 1963) has photographed countless artists, actors, politicians and other celebrities. Sometimes concentrating only on the subject against the most minimal setting possible, sometimes placing them in front of an artful background, Mark presents the rich and famous in constantly new and consistently trenchant ways, bringing their less apparent characteristics to light and casting them in disorienting circumstances. Other of Mark's subjects included here are Tom Hanks, Anthony Hopkins, George Lucas, Sir Ridley Scott, Jenny Holzer, Mia Farrow, Norbert Tadeusz, Kenny Scharf, Georg Baselitz, David Chipperfield, Luc Tuymans, Cate Blanchett, Balthus and Sir Peter Ustinov. Besides Mark's most successful portraits, this volume also contains some of his most beautiful fashion photographs and other stills, many of which have appeared in several well-known magazines. Texts by Margit J. Mayer, Christoph Amend, Christian Boros and others round off this entertaining "best-of" collection.