“Thanks to Kim, I’ve never stopped working on the question of gender”
B.R.
Meeting Alexandra Giraud, also known as Kim Harlow, a transgender woman dancer and cabaret revue leader, had a major impact on Bettina Rheims’ work in the early 1990s. While the series Modern Lovers (1990), showcasing the first images of Kim, enjoyed international success, the series Kim (1991) and Les Espionnes (1992) remained more confidential. The exhibition compares these three projects and retraces the friendship between Kim Harlow and the photographer, as well as her questioning of gender identity in the context of the AIDS years.
In January 1991, Bettina Rheims produced a series of photographs with Kim Harlow, who agreed to the idea of “becoming” Alexandre again, according to a scenario imagined by the photographer. This relationship of mutual trust led to a publishing project for which Kim Harlow, who died of AIDS in 1993, left a voice recording and a manuscript, a rare testimony that raises questions of truth and authenticity.
Published in 1994, the book Kim immediately alludes to the substance of its content through its title and format: a deeply intimate work that gives Kim Harlow’s narrative a central place, overturning the idea of the photo book, which is yet essential to the photographer ‘s artistic approach.
To coincide with this exhibition, the Institut pour la photographie and Editions delpire & co are publishing Kim Harlow, récits, the third opus in the Carnets collection and the first devoted to the work of Bettina Rheims. This book, which looks back at the special relationship between Kim Harlow and Bettina Rheims, offers a fresh look at the creative process through a selection of previously unpublished archives chosen by the photographer.
