Simultaneously with Helmut Newton - A Retrospective, Foam 3h is exhibiting three young photographers who are working at the cutting edge of fashion, portrait and glamour photography.
Selected artists, Carlijn Jacobs, Elizaveta Porodina and Philippe Vogelenzang, each demonstrate a strong, unconventional visual language in both their commercial and autonomous work, reminiscent in various ways of certain Helmut Newton influences.

In contrast to the majority of the fashion world, Carlijn Jacobs (1991, NL) does not aim for perfection, but for unconventionality. She often selects her models by their eccentric appearances and creates an atmosphere around this that is entirely her own, such as her Vivian Atlantis (2016) series, created especially for this exhibition. In winding poses, the model seems to become one with the environment, like an animal in an alien habitat.
Elizaveta Porodina’s (1987, RU) fashion shoots form the realisation of ideas that, as she says herself, “buzz around in her head like a swarm of bees”. The black & white series being exhibited in Foam 3h was created by Elizaveta in May last year for the new ‘Berlin’ album by German rock band KADAVAR. In a bold 60s style, two models feature as groupies obsessively following in the footsteps of their musical idols. The camera doesn’t follow the band, but the girls in their dramatic adoration. Porodina shot this cinematic series at the famous former airport Berlin Tempelhof.

Philippe Vogelenzang (1982, NL) is always searching for something iconic in mankind. Without fuss, he is capable of creating powerful and pure images of every person who stands before his lens, often in a timeless style of black & white photography. In response to Helmut Newton, he decided to produce his own version of the famous ‘Big Nudes’ for this exhibition. Whereas Newton’s women rise above the observer in masculine, intimidating poses, Vogelenzang demonstrates a more approachable, soft and intimate image of a model that would normally be cast for his masculinity.
The work of these three autonomous fashion photographers expresses the visual connections with Helmut Newton’s work in various ways: Carlijn Jacobs shows the importance of the setting around the model, creating an own universe, while in the series by Elizaveta Porodina the cinematic qualities of the image always suggest a bigger picture. Portraying a person in an iconic visual language is characteristic of both Helmut Newton’s and Philippe Vogelenzang’s work. But it is mainly the working method, particularly the unrestrained realisation of personal fantasies and concepts entirely in their own style, that distinguishes these three talents from the current world of fashion photography.
Foam 3h is a project space in which young artists and photographers are invited by the Foam curators to experiment, surprise the audience, and stretch the boundaries of photography.

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