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Me I want to hate the National Portrait Gallery’s new exhibition, Marilyn Monroe: Portrait. It represents two things that should be closed: memorial exhibitions (marking Monroe’s 100th birthday) and exhibitions of famous photos. Celebrations mean nothing more than the passing of time, which is an inevitable and unpleasant fact of life. As for celebrity photo shows – they’re like memorial shows, only faces.
And yet… I didn’t hate the show, and the reason is Monroe herself. We see her first as Norma Jeane Baker, a young girl with always-mouse hair, in a photo shoot in 1940. Then she becomes the star of a beautiful, unshakable, beautiful, cheesecake pin-up and artist who is seen here in the pictures, sketches, and scripts of her films.
Appearing in photo after photo, testimony after testimony, Monroe had a unique, selfless command of the camera, the kind of charm that would define a century. It’s interesting to see all the great icons of the era, such as Richard Avedon, Milton Greene, Cecil Beaton (of course there is a wall of her – imagine the NPG exhibition without it) and Eve Arnold try to create their own portrait of Marilyn. Every time, it’s Monroe who dominates, with unusual hairstyles, hair, makeup, looks and pouts. This show offers the idea of finding the “real Marilyn” through photos. It is more about the stability of his organization over the years. This show gives you Monroe as she wants to be seen.
Beyond the story of the American self-portrait, there is a similar story going on about photography and art. There is a lot of experimentation going on with recording techniques, from Philippe Halsman’s surrealist collages and methods of solarisation, for Weegee to use bent glass and heat, for André de Dienes to take the photographs he took of Monroe and change them based on his death at the age of 36. There is a great sadness in his vision as a mature youth, a teenager and an old teenager. an artist and a fanatic, he felt death. This is some of the best work on the show.
There are also paintings, which show how Monroe became a symbol in the 100th century US – Marilyns go to the paintings of Pauline Boty and the famous paintings of Andy Warhol. Another color can also be found on the back of Nan Goldin’s photo. There are also moments of graphic history, such as when Magnum obtained the exclusive rights to produce The Misfits, a moment of triumph for Arnold and Inge Morath, two of the nine artists on the team. There is also the famous nudity that almost ruined Monroe’s career. It took him before he was famous, it earned him $50. It was later chosen – without permission or payment – by Hugh Hefner at Playboy as the starting point.
Show he does be disappointed, however, as it continues. I wanted to see more, more of the mask. Why can’t we be sad and weak and look good? I wanted to see his mistakes, not for fun, but because they are part of the story. The idea of Monroe deflating “like air coming out of a balloon”, as Ed Feingersh described to her during a private session, is just telling.
Monroe’s cheerful, happy smile is abundant. And even the most impressive celluloid picture struggles to be interesting in most private picture rooms. Smiles are fake when you walk, but we don’t get under them. In one of his last portraits of George Barris, taken on a beach in Santa Monica near the end of his life, he appears for a moment, haggard, haggard, wrinkled, dark, tired.
Then the magnitude of his death at the age of 36 hits you – in the official paparazzi photo of Monroe’s body bag being carried to his home in Los Angeles in August 1962. Peter Blake – one of the many artists who drew on the Monroe motif – uses the photo taken in his 1988 collage Norma Jean Baker. This is where the show ends for me: between Monroe’s real life and the end of her death, which turns her into a normal person. It’s the classic tragedy of celebrity, fame and beauty, reinterpreted in a flash of artificial smiles. I wanted to hate it – but I couldn’t.
