A retrospective in The Netherlands will commemorate 40 years of photographic duo Inez & Vinoodh

Inez & Vinoodh, the inventive duo fashioned by Dutch-born photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, will mark 40 years of observe in 2026, with vogue as one of their principal arenas of inventive exploration. The Kunstmuseum Den Haag (The Hague, Netherlands) is honouring their profession with an exhibition titled “Can Love Be a Photograph”, on view from March 21 to September 6.

The exhibition spans 18 rooms and, via its curatorial journey, displays Inez & Vinoodh’s shared life and inventive alliance since 1986. The duo have been pioneers in the use of digital methods and technological picture manipulation; via their work, the pair have expanded the boundaries of pictures as an audiovisual medium.

“Can Love Be a Photograph” charts 40 years of Inez & Vinoodh’s work throughout artwork, vogue, and portrait pictures. Rather than a chronological association, it’s organised thematically. “By eliminating a linear timeline, the images can establish new relationships with one another, underscoring the distinction between time and history. Viewing each image as a form of self-portraiture, Inez & Vinoodh present the exhibition as a testament to love, understood as the act of truly seeing, valuing, and caring for the other,” explains the Kunstmuseum Den Haag in an announcement.

(*40*) to vogue pictures

The exhibition presents key works that illuminate this inventive pair’s observe, together with the sequence “Thank You Thighmaster,” “Final Fantasy,” and “The Forest,” in addition to “The Kiss,” which the artists regard as the symbol of the exhibition. There will even be a gallery devoted to their editorial and collage work, with rooms that includes large-format portraits of movie stars, artists, musicians, and politicians (from Taylor Swift to Brad Pitt, by way of Billie Eilish), and areas dedicated to their pictures of flowers, nearer to portraiture than to nonetheless life.

No account of Inez & Vinoodh’s work is full with out their contribution to vogue pictures, which can be represented in the exhibition. Over their profession, the artists have shot campaigns for manufacturers reminiscent of Dior, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga, and Chanel, and have revealed their pictures in magazines together with Vogue, V Magazine, Visionaire, The New York Times Magazine, and W Magazine.

In the phrases of author Michael Bracewell, Inez & Vinoodh “manipulate the high-gloss surface of fashion photography into a psychological allegory.” Through its choice and curatorial method, the retrospective “questions whether glamour truly offers a path to happiness,” based on the museum presenting it.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a listing titled “Can Love Be a Photograph- 40 Years of Inez & Vinoodh,” which will embrace essays by Donatien Grau, Francesco Bonami, Pamela Chen, and Willemijn van der Zwaan, in addition to an interview carried out by Tilda Swinton in which the inventive duo mirror on their profession and recurring themes.

This retrospective follows in the wake of an earlier one devoted to Inez & Vinoodh in 2010, marking 25 years of the photographers’ collaboration. Titled “Pretty Much Everything 1985–2010,” it premiered in summer time 2010 in Amsterdam earlier than travelling to São Paulo, Dallas, and Stockholm.