In 25 years they have not changed much. They have the same hairdos and elegant dress sense. Time seems to have as little effect on Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin as on the mutant creatures they created for magazines.
The two Dutch photographers, who have in the last 20 years established themselves as an essential pair in fashion photography, are temporarily back in the Netherlands from New York. The Foam Photography museum in Amsterdam has staged a large and slightly indigestible retrospective (until 25 September), featuring 300 works.
There are all sorts of pictures here – fashion, advertising, celebrity portraits, self-portraits – but they are all provocative, sensual and unreal. Concern for resemblance is never part of the equation. Indeed the duo first came to media attention when they started tinkering with images on a computer. "We learned to use Quantel Paintbox software at university," says Van Lamsweerde. "At the time use of IT was marginal, like to put a sheen on a car, not to create pictures."
In 1991 the pair saved a rainy photo shoot from disaster. For the background they used sunlit material taken while preparing the location, then superimposed studio pictures of the models. Then for a series for The Face in 1994 they used background material from a picture library for the first time.
Their pictures were in step with the emerging digital revolution: bodies verging on science fiction – among their acknowledged influences – expressed the quest for physical perfection and the growing unreality of human relations on the net. "We did not think time would prove us so right," says Matadin. "People increasingly resort to plastic surgery to improve their physique, but their social life consists exclusively of their 5,000 friends on Facebook."
The most successful early series adopted a critical stance towards the fashion industry. In Thank You Thighmaster, for instance, women expose perfect bodies but their genitalia and breasts have been erased. With time, however, the pair became more conventional. "We had to decide if we wanted to go on being outsiders," Matadin says. "We reckoned that even if we played it by the rules there was still plenty to do."
The two have embarked on a partly autobiographical project that crosses the border separating art from fashion. They are represented by the Matthew Marks gallery in New York and their work has been shown at the Venice Biennale. "We have never tried to make art," Van Lamsweerde says. "We live together, we work together and we want to do incredible things, that's all. Some works function in several worlds, others do not."
Pretty Much Everything - Photographs 1985-2010 is at the Foam Photography Museum in Amsterdam, Holland, until 25 September.
This article originally appeared in Le Monde