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Image credit: Yorgos Lanthimos

I braved the crap traffic on the 110 to get myself over to DTLA this morning for a very special cause: to check out Yorgos Lanthimos: Photographs, the first exhibition of still photography from the director whose work has made my jaw drop to the floor maybe more than any other.

Here’s the rundown: The exhibit is on view at the Webber Gallery (939 Santa Fe Avenue) until May 24, and it is open Wednesday-Saturday from 11am to 6pm. I arrived a few minutes after opening, and there was no one there but me and the gallerist, so get there early on a weekday and you’ll likely have the place all to yourself. (Bliss!) 

A couple of hot tips: Street parking is available but you may have to park around the block. This portion of the Arts District has art galleries and bougie coffee shops sprinkled in between strip clubs and wholesalers, so you can view some cool art, grab a locally roasted coffee at Maru (the cream top is delish!) and have an Anora moment at the Playpen—all on the same short block. 

Image credit: Yorgos Lanthimos

Back to the matter at hand. So the exhibit winds through three small rooms, with a hidden gem in the back: a pair of magnificent collages. It primarily features photos taken behind the scenes of his most recent films—Kinds of Kindness and Poor Things—and they are as entrancing and thoughtful as you might expect. 

If you’re an Emma Stone fan, there’s plenty of the Academy Award winner on display in this collection. This photo below was my favo(u)rite. (pun intended) 

Image credit: Yorgos Lanthimos

I’m an absolute sucker for shadow shots because they play with negative space and texture and they’re deliciously cinematic. This one in particular, taken in a hotel room, is exquisite. The lighting, the double lamps, the ruffled bedding, the placement of the phone. Is that alcohol or bougie water? The implications of every element, just chef’s kiss, Yorgos.

I don’t want to spoil the rest of the photos because it truly is worth a visit if you can make it out. And yes, the pieces are for sale, if you’ve got $7 to $12k to spare. (Do photography prints appreciate like traditional fine art? If so, could be a great investment.)

If you are interested in seeing more of the photos or reading about Yorgos’ intentions for this exhibit, Dazed did a fantastic feature, which I’ll link here. That article also includes additional shots of the photos on view, in case you can’t make it to the exhibition.

I’ll close this out with a nice insight from Yorgos’ Dazed interview:

“I’m quite shy, so it wasn’t easy for me to just go out and take pictures of people. I found it easier on sets – everybody kind of expected it, I could just say ‘portrait time’, which I did. I wasn’t taking pictures that had any value to them, outside of documenting the [filmmaking] process, but I started thinking, is there a different perspective? Are there different kinds of images I could be creating from this world we created?”