A tale of two covers at Condé Nast

Recently, Dario Calmese, a Black artist, photographed the actress Viola Davis for the cover of Vanity Fair. The cover was released yesterday. The photo that adorns it is based on “The Scourged Back,” an image, from 1863, of Gordon, a man who escaped slavery and whose back had been lacerated by whipping. Davis recreated Gordon’s pose; she wore a dark-blue MaxMara dress backwards, so as to make her back visible. “This image reclaims that narrative, transmuting the white gaze on Black suffering into the Black gaze of grace, elegance, and beauty,” Calmese said, of the Davis cover. He added, in an interview about the photoshoot with Jessica Testa, of the New York Times, “I knew this was a moment to be, like, extra Black.” Online, Calmese’s image of Davis got better reviews than another recent cover of a Condé Nast magazine: that of the August issue of Vogue, which features a portrait of Simone Biles—the Olympic gymnast and survivor of sexual abuse within the USA Gymnastics setup—in a Bottega Veneta bodysuit, also with her back to the camera. The image was shot in February, by Annie Leibovitz. After it came out, critics said that Leibovitz’s dim lighting had done Biles a disservice. “I adore Simone Biles and am thrilled she’s on this cover,” Morrigan McCarthy, national picture editor at the Times, tweeted. “But I hate these photos. I hate the toning, I hate how predictable they are.” Britni Danielle, a journalist and editor, added, “Simone Biles deserved better than Annie... Continue reading at 'Columbia Journalism Review'

[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-07-15 12:08:12 UTC ]
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A tale of two covers at Condé Nast

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