BODY OF TRUTH
For artist and photographer Mustafa Sabbagh, real beauty stands witness to personal stories - it touches, stings and cuts but does not reassure.
By RADHINA ALMEIDA COUTINHO
Photography MUSTAFA SABBAGH
Uncomfortable. There’s no other way to describe a photograph by Mustafa Sabbagh. No matter how exquisite the body in the image, it’s not quite beauty that draws your eye. It’s a visual oxymoron – classical poses placed cheek by jowl with fetishist symbols, perfectly sculptured muscles engulfed by a limp teddy bear suit or vulnerable bodies constrained in corsets and gimp masks.
For an artist born in Amman, Jordan – in a region steeped in a tradition of non-objectification of the human body in art and ornamentation – Sabbagh’s eye seems permanently drawn towards the human form.
“The body is not an object but a message; making each body a story – sometimes, even an erotic one – gives us the chance to become a masterpiece ourselves,” says Sabbagh. “The body is a democratic act, bearer of personal stories. Denying his imperfection is like erasing his past.”
Mustafa Sabbagh’s preoccupation with the human body has led his images to be considered among the 70 most beautiful photography portraits of all time, as immortalized in the publication Faces - curated by renowned photography historian Peter Weiermair.
His artworks are included in several sold-out monographs, such as About Skin acquired by the permanent book collection of London’s Tate Gallery and a place at the Musee de L’Elysee, a veritable temple of photography. Sabbagh’s work is showcased in several permanent private and public collections in Italy and around the world - including the historical Farnesina Art Collection, the Orestiadi Foundation Collection and as part of the permanent contemporary art collection of MAXXI – The National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome. A former assistant of Richard Avedon, teacher at the Central St. Martin College of Art in London and considered by many to be a polymath of fashion photography, Sabbagh’s own distinctive style and prolific body of work has unsurprisingly earned him a well-deserved place among the 100 most influential photographers in the world and one of the top 40 most important nude portraitists of our time.
Sabbagh may have made his name as a fashion photographer, but he says that he is no longer interested in what a person wears but why they wear it. “The naked body tells its story, it has few veils, it is less hypocritical. A dressed body is a lie, and I always look for the truth,” says Sabbagh.
For Sabbagh, vestments and props are symbolic – whether it’s a police constable’s hat or an army helmet, a louche cigarette dangling from the fingertips, a bandage or a black bridal veil – they serve as emblems that add context to the image.
The dense symbolism of Sabbagh’s pieces sometimes makes attempting to appreciate his work feel overwhelming.
The Italian-Palestinian artist’s creations reveal a multitude of layers almost impenetrable to the conscious mind. Sabbagh has likened his creative process to a theory of psychology that involves assimilation of a galaxy of influences – from frames in a movie, to classical sculpture, religious motifs, mythology and epic poetry, line drawings, music and multi-lingual literature. What Sabbagh creates when he stands behind a lens – or styles what’s in front of it –has been fed by an unconscious that is well-nourished by years of consuming numerous visual influences and imbibing classical and cultural references.
The result are images and clips of video art that consistently depict a riveting dance between the beautiful and the grotesque.
Sabbagh has said that for him, perfection represents the true nightmare of contemporary man. What his images present time and time again is the desecration of perfection to reveal virtually limitless idiosyncrasies and variations.
“Dark circles from too much work, or too much pleasure. Veins pulsing life. That rough, raw beauty between Caravaggio and Pasolini. I do not like flat faces, I do not like flat things, I don’t like flat life,” says Sabbagh. “I do not like things that cannot sting me, cut me, touch me deeply. That’s why, to me, real beauty hurts: real beauty does not reassure. It’s uncomfortable.”
Nowhere is this ethos of disturbing beauty more strongly expressed than in Sabbagh’s repeated destruction of gender stereotypes. His subjects consistently flirt with gender fluidity – men strut proudly in tulle skirts, women wear their hair closely cropped, female chests are bandaged flat while men’s bodies are draped in poses that highlight voluptuous curves.
“Accepting the other as an integral part of our being. Contemporary beauty does not feed on appearance but on essence. Living through truthful gestures, perceiving time as passage, rather than as decay. Beauty is looking into ourselves to comprehend the world around us with both temporal and ethical value.”
According to Sabbagh, each gender must be celebrated “but thinking that the human being is a reproductive organ is the mere negation of humanistic progress.” He says: “Feeling yourself in your own body is the first step towards happiness. Diversity stands as the real sine qua non of the modern man. I feel man or woman in a way beyond these two polarities. The only way is to see eroticism is through their habitat: their house is their skin, their dress is their desire.”
So how does Sabbagh approach the depiction of this complex enigma that is the human body?
“Exactly like Lucio Fontana’s canvases,” says Sabbagh. “Through a few gestures I arrive at the perfect cut.”
