Exhibition review: Fragile Beauty at V&A

Highlights from the photography collection of Sir Elton John and David Furnish

Married couple Sir Elton John and David Furnish have accumulated quite the photography collection. They showed off some of it at a Tate Modern exhibition in 2016/17 and now V&A are showcasing more of the works with a stronger focus on celebrity, news and fashion. I’ve picked my highlights from the show and why they stood out for me.

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Content warning: There is sensitive content in this post relating to death.

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The Beekeeper

© Victoria and Albert Museum

There’s a reason the exhibition opens with this work by Richard Avedon, as it’s so striking. The subject is a part time bee-keeper called Ronald Fischer - it took three sittings, and four bee stings to get this perfect shot. Better him than me and that’s serious commitment to creating this artwork.

North Korean propaganda

The Arirang Mass Games is a perfectly choreographed event in North Korea that is carefully co-ordinated with over 80,000 performers and honours Kim Il-Sung, the founder of North Korea. These images were shot by Andreas Gursky who has captured many mass events and industrial elements of our world - whether that be a hundreds of dancing bodies at a rave or the seemingly endless array of items in an Amazon warehouse. To learn more about the artist you can read my review of his 2018 exhibition at Hayward Gallery.