Corinne Day: Diary

Product Information

Corinne Day sadly passed away in August 2010. It is now thought that her disciplined following of alternative treatments and good nutrition after her surgery, with the aid of her husband Mark Szaszy, helped to extend her life. Marevna was part of a group of artists living and working in the teaming quarter of La Ruche in Paris between 1912 - 1921 all of whom were some of the greatest artists of the 20th century - Picasso, Braque, Leger, Max Jacob, Modigliani, Chagall, Kremegne, the poets Ehrenburg and Cocteau, Charlie Chaplan and the writers and intellectuals of Montparnasse. It was in this time of self-reflection that she started to learn about natural light and its effects in her documentary style imagery. Having that in mind the scenes she photographed also changed. The photographs of underground clubs, run down hotel rooms and squatting communes tended to be introverted, even claustrophobic. Her more recent works are photographs of her friends bathed in sunlight in places such as the Riviera or Sicily. Nan Goldin’s concern is also how the camera effects her immediate environment, whereas the ambiguity of the camera certainly adds to the complexity of her relationships. During the 2000s Day returned to fashion photography, working for British, French and Italian Vogue, Arena and Vivienne Westwood, amongst others. During this time she also photographed film actors Nicolas Cage, Sienna Miller and Scarlett Johansson.

But the next time Corinne Day impinged on the public consciousness, that freshness had been replaced by a darker, harsher vision. In 1993, she photographed Kate Moss for a fashion shoot for British Vogue. In it, the model looked strung out and sad, dressed down in baggy tights and stringy underwear that exacerbated her skinniness. Again, the photographs were a reaction to the glitzy unrealness of the fashion photography that Vogue usually featured, but here the extremity of Day's vision provoked outrage and hysterical headlines about the glamorisation of anorexia and hard drug use. Living in Milan together, Day began photographing new models for their portfolios. Her ability to put the new faces at ease and communicate their personality made her a favourite with modelling agencies. As a teenager, when he was traveling on an airplane, he met a photographer who suggested modeling and he did so later for Guess Jeans. My attitude is more businesslike, not so aggressive. I'm keeping within the boundaries. It's interesting - I've actually come to a point in my life where I want to make money.' She laughs. 'I've realised that it can be quite useful.' During an extended trip to Hong Kong and Thailand, Szaszy taught Day how to use a camera and in 1987 they moved to Milan. It was in Milan that Day's career as a fashion photographer started. Having produced photographs of Szaszy and her friends for their modelling portfolios, Day began approaching magazines for work. [2] First steps in fashion photography [ edit ]Day's photographs, fashion and not, were exhibited at the Victoria & Albert, Science and Design museums, Tate Modern, the Saatchi Gallery, and the Photographers' Gallery, and Szaszy spent a devoted decade making a documentary of her at work, which was shown on BBC Four in 2004. When I moved to London in 1990 Melanie and I became close friends. We went to the markets like Portobello and Camden and others every weekend. We shopped at second hand clothes shops like Glorious Clothing and Cornucopia. We worked very closely together. One of the most affecting, and harrowing sequences within the exhibition records Day's hospitalisation following the diagnosis of a brain tumour in 1996. Even at moments of maximum anxiety and pain, she makes sure that the camera is there to record the intensity of her experience. Both of us being on the dole we shared the expense of buying clothes. I always bought clothes that I would wear myself. Music was our inspiration for the “Third Summer of Love” photographs that I took in 1990 for the FACE. Kate and I liked Nirvana, Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. These photographs were about Kate. I wanted to capture her presence, not so much mine. And I like the way that she was skinny. I was teased at school for being thin and clothes would never fit me when I was a model. In the 1980's you had to wear loads of make-up. I didn't like the fake poses and phony faces. I thought fashion photography came across all about the photographer instead of the person they photographed. Fashion magazines had been selling sex and glamour for far too long. I wanted to instill some reality into a world of fantasy. Day continued to shoot for The Face, as well as for i-D magazine and American Vogue. However, in 1993, Day’s controversial and heavily criticized shoot for British Vogue would leave her (temporarily) outcast by the publisher and Kate Moss’s model management. Styled in lingerie inside Moss’s apartment, Underexposed evokes an unfiltered tenderness. Once released, however, the shoot was condemned for promoting anorexia and pedophilia.

It is a similar image in Larry Clark’s Tulsa that puts a friend into the same context of ambiguity. In an almost pictorialist fashion Clark photographed a pregnant woman sitting on a chair in front of a window. The optimism is soon to be destroyed with a photograph of a three-foot coffin. With out a doubt it is the coffin for the newborn of Clark’s friend who was a notorious heroin shooter. In Diary though, the take on life and birth of life is different. The viewer identifies Tara as an inopportune individual who is forced to live a life at the edge of society. Nevertheless, she also seems to be a loving and caring mother in pictures where she bathes or feeds her baby. Retreating from fashion work in the wake of the ‘heroin chic’ debate, Day spent much of her personal time over the next seven years taking photographs for her first book, ‘Diary’, a personal visual record of her life and friends, including Tara St Hill and the band, Pusherman with whom she toured America. The book is by turns both bleak and frank, but it is also a tender, poetic and honest chronicle of young lives. With lank hair, no make-up and wearing what look at this 20-year distance to be charity shop finds (scuffed boots, tatty jumpers), she's beautiful but fresh and real: recognisably a girl from Croydon. In a series of pictures taken in Borneo, she seems barely older than the local kids. One shot sees her leading a grinning young boy whose face is surrounded by the petals of a giant paper flower, like Barry Mooncult, dancer with early 90s band Flowered Up . In another, she's posed in a tropical location, but wearing a floppy hat and clutching a bottle of beer, more Club 18-30 than Condé Nast Travel. At times, Diary is bleak and despairing, as it chronicles these young lives with uncompromising honesty. At others, it is joyful in its simple celebration of friendship. Any sense of voyeurism is tempered by the fact that Day clearly shares in the lives of her subjects. Whether visible or not, she is always, herself, emotionally present in her photographs.

Kruse Verlag published ‘Diary’ in 2000. This body of work was exhibited at The Photographers' Gallery in London in the same year.

In regards to a body of work that challenges dominant cultural theory, I would like to discuss Corinne Day’s photography. She only recently gained recognition as a documentary photographer with the publication of her book called Diary in 2000. Over a period of nearly a decade she captured her friends lives, in what turned out to be an extensive project containing over one hundred images. By viewing her book, one soon realizes that Corinne Day’s work is strikingly analogous to that of Larry Clark and in particular Nan Goldin. In addition to that, the biography of Day and Goldin also read alike which inevitably leads to the question if similar experiences lead to similar forms of expression.Corinne Day, a self taught photographer, first became known for the images she published in 1990 in The Face of her friend, Kate Moss. The series launched what came to be known as 'grunge' style. Day photographed her again in 1993 for British Vogue and it was these shots - Moss in skimpy underwear and American tan tights, at home in her dingy, west London flat - which further changed the face of fashion photography, and unleashed an international furore. Alice Correia: Of course Corinne’s work will always draw a certain amount of attention because of who they depict, but beyond that, I think these images speak of a moment of teenage self-exploration; of a time when anything was possible because the whole world is at your fingertips. The series draws comparison with artists such as Nan Goldin and Larry Clark, who also live what they photograph. Like them, Day is curious about people who pursue experiences beyond the norm. She is extremely, at times even unbearably, close to the friends she photographs and yet she is so trusted that her presence is never regarded as intrusive, even at the most intimate moments. Diary also records the dramatic events of the fateful night in 1996 when Corinne collapsed in her New York apartment and was rushed to Bellevue hospital. There, she underwent an emergency operation for a brain tumour. She insisted that Mark photographed her, even in the moments leading up to her surgery. She looks dazed, helpless, disoriented. “To me, photography is about showing us things we don’t normally see,” she said later, “Getting as close as you can to real life.” The book’s final picture is of a beach strewn with beer cans: a glimmer of hope, and yet a tarnished one.

As August 27 2011 marks the one-year anniversary of Corinne Day’s death, next month sees Gimpel Fils gallery, Mörel Books and Whitechapel Gallery all pay homage to the legendary image-maker. Revolutionising fashion photography in the early 90s with her candid and documentary aesthetic, sensationally labelled “heroin chic”, Day is also credited with helping launch the career of her close friend Kate Moss. Causing controversy with her daring and often provocative imagery – which featured models and friends in intimate and gritty situations – Day’s photographs have become synonymous with the decade that brought about grunge, acid house and rave culture. Alice Correia: Corinne grew up in a north-west London suburb at the end of the Metropolitan Line. She was acutely aware that the highly stylised images in the glossies did not reflect everyday teenage life- going to school, getting a part-time job etc- so she wanted to create images that would be familiar to people looking at them. Dazed Digital: When was the first time you worked with Corinne? What was your first impression of her photography? The Gimpel Fils Gallery will, this month, pay tribute to revolutionary photographer Corinne Day to mark the one-year anniversary of her death on 27th August. Using candid documentary-style techniques to capture provocative and often biographical images, Corinne came to define the 90’s aesthetic that rejected the high-gloss images of mainstream magazines. With sixteen years of age, Day was only two years older than Goldin when she left school. Their family history is similarly convoluted whereas Day moved to her Grandmother - who is also included in Diary - when she was five. This might have to do with the fact that her father was, as she herself says, a “professional bank robber” (Cotton, p. 60). The questionable relationship with her parents is also depicted in her book with a picture of family members darkened down to an extent that the viewer can only identify Tara.

Focusing on her work for The Face, the exhibition will display her intimate photographs as they appeared in the magazine, as well as showcasing her well known Kate Moss images. Dazed spoke to Corinne’s Gimpel Fils agent Alice Correia, who worked alongside the photographer for many years, to find out more about this poignant dedication… In November 1996 at the Bellevue Hospital in New York, Day was diagnosed with a slow-growing, Grade Two brain tumour called an Oligo Astrocytoma, after which she returned to London for brain surgery at the Whitechapel Hospital in December. The surgeon and oncologist gave her a prognosis of 8 years left to live, however Day outlived this prognosis by more than six years. His images began to attract attention for being somewhat melancholic and feeling real. When she was ready, she took her work to the Art Director of the magazine. The Face, who asked him to take some photos. Her style of “dirty realism” was to become enormously influential within mainstream advertising. But where the imagery of nonchalant, nonconformist youth was for Day an extension of her life, in fashion the “look” returned as pure, empty style. Day started to distance herself from the high-gloss world of magazines and catwalks, but never stopped making photographs.