Thierry Mugler

Context is the key in this collection of fashion photographs by French fashion designer Mugler. Setting his models against dramatic architectural backgrounds, he plays off texture against texture, color against color and the human in scale against the simply colossal. A spirit of self-referential humor infuses many of the color-saturated images as models mimic poses of huge statues, many of them political, or provide a provocative human focus in an imposing natural background. Mugler's contexts include the Algerian Sahara with vast reaches of patterned, shadowed sand, Arizona's Monument Valley, giant sunlit icefloes in Greenland and modern icons of architecture such as New York's Chrysler Building and ultra-modern facades in Paris and Moscow. As gathered here, the photographs are less revealing of modern fashion (not all the models wear Mugler designs) than they are of a particular cultural overview, making the foreword from France's Minister of Culture particularly fitting. Small black-and-white replications provide fashion information and identify settings. (Feb.)