Kim Harlow, récits

Kim Harlow played an important role in Bettina Rheims’ work in the early 1990s, with the Modern Lovers and Les Espionnes series on the question of gender. This book looks back at their special relationship and offers a fresh look at the creative process, thanks to previously unpublished archives selected by the photographer.

This notebook, which delves into Bettina Rheims’ archives, is a tribute from the photographer to her model.

Bettina Rheims met Kim Harlow, a cabaret dancer and showgirl, in 1990 for the casting of her series Modern Lovers. Kim was the only transgender person among the portraits of young androgynous people through whom the artist sought to convey a sense of disquiet. This meeting was also the trigger for the series Les Espionnes (1991-1992), which pursued the question of trans-identity.

In January 1991, the strong relationship that had developed between the photographer and Kim Harlow gave rise to a joint photographic project that gave rise to a book, Kim, published in 1994, after Kim’s death. Thirty years on, we felt it essential to bring together in a single volume images from the Modern Lovers and Les Espionnes series, as well as the Kim series, together with the original text, without which the story would have been incomplete.