Before John Malkovich was a Hollywood star, he made his name in Chicago as a member of the famed Steppenwolf theatre company. Since then, his career has been defined by his willingness to transform himself radically, in films including Of Mice and Men, Empire of the Sun and – of course – Being John Malkovich.
It is this talent for metamorphosis that makes Malkovich a perfect subject for Sandro Miller’s new exhibition, Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters, which opened on Friday at Chicago’s Catherine Edelman Gallery.
The two met 17 years ago, during a photoshoot for Steppenwolf members. “John and I, just out of respect for each other, felt there was something special between us. There was a bond,” said Miller.
“John became my muse and I became his photographer.”
This creative relationship has led to “eight or nine” collaborative photographic projects. “He’s been so open to my ideas,” said Miller, “allowing me to have him portrayed in so many different types of characters.”
The latest project – featuring “characters” such as Albert Einstein, John Lennon and Che Guevara – will be their largest project yet.
After surviving cancer, Miller began to look at his professional past, examining his reasons for becoming a photographer. “These images have always haunted me,” he said. “I open up a magazine and I come across these images again … my heart stops.” Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich became a way to pay homage, to say thank you to the greats while examining the ways in which images resonate.
Throughout his career, Miller has balanced a career as an advertising photographer with his passion as a visual artist. This meticulous balance can be found in the images he has admired and recreated. Along with recreations of work by Robert Mapplethorpe, Irving Penn and Andres Serrano, Miller also paid homage to masters of commercial photography like Annie Leibovitz, Carl Fischer and Herb Ritts.
The Chicago show suggests that art is not removed from the culture which it examines. There is little difference here between a great ad and great art. “Even in the art world, you have to create symmetries that connect to people, that make them want to discuss or to learn more about that imagery,” Miller said. “In advertising, I learned how to take images that truly resonated with people.”
An Esquire cover of Muhammad Ali, then, is as relevant to the way we see the world as a Marilyn Monroe print by Andy Warhol. Great creators can be found in commercial, artistic and journalistic worlds.
Miller is not just a photographer: he is also a meticulous researcher. His latest collaboration with Malkovich took a year to co-ordinate. No detail was left unstudied. Although they acquired some props used in the original photographs, most of Miller’s time was spent recreating the small details – the shaggy rug in Art Shay’s 1950 photograph of Simone de Beauvoir, the rugged sweater worn by a woman in Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, from 1936.
“The longest part was getting the right kind of props, the sets, the correct hair, the makeup,” Miller said. “So much of that had to be made. The wardrobe required seamstresses. We had to build most of the settings.”
The shoot was squeezed into four 15-hour days. “There was no experimenting. There was no practicing. Everything was thought out and extremely tight,” said Miller. “We knew what we had to do.”
At first, Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich is funny. Here is Malkovich, raw and unrefined. His age is pronounced; wrinkles line his mouth and cheeks. His skin sags and bags droop under his eyes. He is a remarkable physical specimen.
But the show is not a parody. And it takes a true, transformative figure eventually to blend into the image itself. These are iconic images and this show makes us see them afresh. Its real story is that a truly powerful picture can last forever.
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