Helmut Newton: White Women • Sleepless Nights • Big Nudes

(Annenberg Space for Photography, 10 August 2013)

Helmut Newton's fashion photography is predicated on the principle that the individual has no inherent personality. Instead, any personality trait derives from a garment. Newton's models wear the clothes that they do not choose in settings that they would not seek. The clothes accentuate no trait that the model cannot be stripped of or twisted out of. The stares are blank, right into the camera.

The exhibition notes apologise pre-emptively, claiming that the photographs do not "objectify," but empower, the women. Objectification (a concept so nebulous that it subtracts from any debate) is subjective. If one detects it and is offended by it, one is better off not perusing Newton's catalogue; no disclaimer would appease.