Outtake from “Knockout”, Vogue.

Chris von Wangenheim’s work challenged society and daringly captured its darkest and unpalatable aspects. By creating an explosive mix of violence caught in the moment and highly polished scenes, he played extremely well on the sharp contrasts of the times. He also seemed to demonstrate the inescapability of violence.

This series shot with Christie Brinkley was part of the selection of Vera Wang’s most iconic images for HBO documentary Vogue: The Editor’s Eye. The Fashion designer, who at the time was the Vogue fashion editor responsible for this shoot, remembers: “It was a nighttime shoot, which is always interesting because there is a certain aura and sensuality when shoots are done at night. That particular sitting was very exacting because there were so many components. We had a live horse brought up in an elevator, we had a scene where Christie was wrestling two male models who were rigged up in makeshift contraption to suspend them from the ceiling, and we had a big Doberman. And even though the Doberman was being fed scraps of meat every ten seconds by the trainer in between takes, he got ahold at the dress and went a little crazy and destroyed it. […] But Chris had an insane sense of perfection so no matter how hard the shoot was, we knew we would get great pictures.”

Edition of 5 + 2AP

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