© STEVEN KLEIN, CASE STUDY #13 IMAGE 32, 2005

Since the 1990s, Klein has produced numerous photo series with international stars. Apart from creating the exhibition installation "X-STaTIC PRO=CeSS" with photographs and videos of Madonna, Klein has worked with celebrities like Britney Spears, David Beckham, and recently, Kate Moss and Lady Gaga. The portrayal of these artists, who are famous for their controversial performances and eccentric life styles, seems an apt choice for Steven Klein, whose work has always been prone to provocation.

In 2005, Klein created a photo series with two of the most celebrated film stars who were then just about to become Hollywood’s super couple: In "Case Study", Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt portray an American family, erotic tension and themes like wealth and loneliness filtering through the seemingly perfect surface. The series is reminiscent of the motion picture "Mr. & Mrs. Smith", in which Pitt and Jolie starred around the same time.

© STEVEN KLEIN, CASE STUDY #13 IMAGE 18, 2005

The show at CWC GALLERY also includes photographs from Klein’s popular and bizarre series "Valley of the Dolls" with fashion designer and film director Tom Ford. The series is a reckoning with today's ideal of beauty, increasingly pressuring people to resemble dolls rather than humans. The models in the photographs are clean-shaven men without hair on their chests and women with artificial breasts and lips. Beauty is no longer a question of creams or lotions but of Botox and face-lifting, and Klein shows the almost artificial bodies literally being polished. Tom Ford stands out in the middle of the models as the one who manipulates the bodies for them to meet aesthetic expectations.

© STEVEN KLEIN, VALLEY OF THE DOLLS IMAGE NO. 03, 2006

Steven Klein’s latest works also include a stunning series showing Kate Moss in historical dresses and complex settings, biblical references and religious imagery again stirring the controversy that has often accompanied Klein’s work. Most recently, his »Time Capsule« installation was exhibited at the Garage Center for Centemporary Culture in Moscow. First he "took Manhattan" where he works, and now he takes Berlin!

© STEVEN KLEIN, X-STATIC PRO=CESS 03, 2002

Steven Klein exhibition, CWC Gallery, July 7 - September 8, 2012

All photos Courtesy of Steven Klein, © STEVEN KLEIN, www.kleinstudio.us

CAMERA WORK GmbH, Photogalerie, Kantstrasse 149, Berlin, www.camerawork.de