Tina Berning and Michelangelo Di Battista: Face/Project at Camera Work Gallery

BERLIN.- Camera Work gallery opened a solo exhibition of the artists Tina Berning and Michelangelo Di Battista in Berlin for the first time.

More than 30 works, only unique pieces, are on display in the exhibition. Within their collaboration, Tina Berning and Michelangelo Di Battista blur the boundaries between fashion photography, drawing, and painting. The two artists met for the first time on the occasion of a photo shoot for VOGUE ITALIA in the summer of 2007. The two started working together and quickly realized the great potential of their creative collaboration. During the shooting Tina Berning and Michelangelo Di Battista noticed that they had entered a territory together which had already previously captured each of them individually. Ignoring the computer’s possibilities for manipulation, they combined their fields of work, photography, and drawing, anachronistically in an analogue way.

Michelangelo Di Battista‘s portraits of women (including super models Claudia Schiffer, Amber Valetta, and Julia Stegner) – complemented by Tina Berning‘s applications, comments, and paintings – seem to function as a stock-check and an analysis of contemporary feminine beauty. By merging the two disciplines, the superficial masquerade is being destroyed and the portrayed women are thus given a new level of complexity. The drawings engage with the photographs and let the images become complex blueprints of the essence of the portrayed. In their work, Tina Berning and Michelangelo Di Battista create a subjective, critical but at the same time tender view on women. This large-scale continuation of their artistic collaboration for VOGUE ITALIA displays the hubris and frailty of femininity, which is reflected on the surface of the media. The photos reveal the challenging, yet at the same time sublime charisma of the women portrayed. They seem to dissolve from their medial image to reemerge precisely through them, powerful and musing, sensitive and beautiful, mature and self-determined.

Michelangelo Di Battista’s dedication and passion towards his work over the last two decades has attracted some of the fashion and beauty industries most prestigious names. His images have been featured in the most prominent publications across the globe. Through multi media collaborations, Michelangelo Di Battista pushes the boundaries of fashion photography, constantly searching for new outlet for his vision.

Known for her versatility and uncompromising artistic sensibility, Berlin-based Tina Berning is one of the most sought after illustrators worldwide. She has exhibited solo shows in the USA, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands. Her work is an influential part of contemporary visual culture in design, advertising and editorial offices worldwide.