Body Freedom is the latest chapter in Karl Lagerfeld’s ongoing photographic exploration of model Baptiste Giabiconi.
Lagerfeld’s first portrait of Giabiconi in book form, The Beauty of Violence (2010), showed Giabiconi acting out an
erotic seizure in a studio and toyed with the idea of nudity. Body Freedom liberates Giabiconi from the studio
environment and tackles nudity full on: with enviable self-confidence and no shame, the nude Giabiconi plays before
Lagerfeld’s lens.
Body Freedom comprises two folio-size books in a slipcase, each embodying a different episode in Giabiconi’s
development. The first shows him in the ruins of the Villa Adriana in Tivoli in 2008 (the ‘antique’); while the second
presents more recent images of Giabiconi in contemporary architectural settings (the ‘modern’). Containing images
taken over three years, Body Freedom is an exercise in the passing of time as seen through the male form, the
transition from adolescence into manhood.
Karl Lagerfeld, fashion designer, book dealer and publisher, began working as a photographer in 1987. He has
received the Lucky Strike Design Award from the Raymond Lewy Foundation, the cultural prize from the German
Photographic Society, and the ICP Trustees Award at the International Center of Photography’s Infinity Awards in
2007. His recent photographic exhibitions include ‘Konkret Abstrakt Gesehen’ at the Langen Foundation, Neuss; and
‘Metamorphoses of an American – A Cycle of Youth, 2003–8’ at Pace/MacGill, New York. Steidl has published most
of Lagerfeld’s photography books, including Casa Malaparte, Aktstrakt, A Portrait of Dorian Gray, Room Service,
Palazzo, Metamorphoses of an American, and The Beauty of Violence.
Body Freedom
von Karl Lagerfeld
