A MODERN FORM OF WORSHIP

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Name the five photographers who, more than any others, defined the dramatic shift in the approach to magazine photography in the late eighties and early nineties. There’s Herb Ritts, Bruce Weber, Steven Meisel. Richard Avedon, of course. 

Who’s missing? I’m getting to that.

Today’s guest was discovered while still a student at ArtCenter College of Design in Los Angeles, by Andy Warhol no less, whose upstart (and budget-deficient) team at "Interview" couldn’t afford to send a crew to LA for a shoot. His first subject, newbie director Steven Spielberg, launched his photography career, and soon he was shooting for every magazine you could imagine.

We’re talking, of course, about Matthew Rolston. He, and his fellow rebels, changed everything by bringing both a sensuality and a sexuality to newsstands that big publishing hadn’t seen before. Readers ate it up. Ask him to explain this transformation and you’ll get a hot take that will completely change how you think about media and celebrity:

“I think glamour—and glamour photography—is a substitute for god and goddess worship. The altar is the photo studio. So the goddess comes to the dressing room like she would’ve come to the preparation chamber of a temple. She’s anointed with oils and potions—that would be the hair and makeup team. She’s dressed in symbolic raiment—that would be the styling. And she’s led to the altar where the adherents kneel before her—that would be me on the floor with my camera. It is really the same thing. It’s just a modern, twisted version of the same impulses that we have to idolize people and worship them.” 

Just this year ArtCenter, his alma mater, presented the photographer, director, author, artist, and educator with its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award, honoring both his creative legacy and his role as a mentor to the next generation. It’s the perfect moment to look back on his remarkable career, and to hear directly from Rolston himself.

Our Anne Quito caught up with Matthew in the lead up to the premiere of an evocative new body of work, "Vanitas: The Palermo Portraits," a site-specific installation at ArtCenter, which premieres this weekend.

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Commercial Type and Freeport Press.

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