“[I]mperfection was the essence of what Liberman was looking
for—the breakthrough from fantasy and artifice into the here-and-now,”
wrote Kazanjian and Tompkins. “It was the antidote to the ‘visions of
loveliness’ that Mrs. Chase and generations of Voguereaders cherished—
visions that Alex wanted to banish forever from the pages of Vogue, in part
because he felt that they were demeaning to women.Voguewas not really
about fashion, he always said; it was about women.”
Like Brodovitch, Liberman focused his creative energy on
photography; he encouraged many women photographers to enter a field
largely dominated by men. Liberman urged Vogue’s editors to publish
photographs of Dachau concentration camp by Lee Miller, a former model
who learned photography from Man Ray. “Nobody realizes that Vogue
published them,” he related. “But for me this was practically a justification
for being on Vogue.” For Liberman the lessons of Lee Miller’s and Cecil
Beaton’s war photography changed the style of fashion photography. News
photography in general and the emergence of a daring paparazzi forced a
rethinking at Voguethat exceeded the boundaries of visual presentation.
“I’ve always felt that Voguewas one of the strong pioneers for
democratization, for women’s rights, and for breaking down false cultural
values,” asserted Liberman.
Like Brodovitch, Liberman shared the belief that cinematic pacing
was the visual backbone of a magazine. However, Brodovitch saw
photography as an art form while Liberman believed that “photographs...
were documents—momentary glimpses of something that could be printed
in ink on a magazine page and eventually discarded. That was their
function and their fate,” wrote Kazanjian and Tompkins. Liberman made
layout sequences the way a film is cut, trying to communicate moods
through narrative imagery. “I hate white space because white space is an old
album tradition,” he charged. “I need to be immersed in the subject matter.”
Liberman’s approach has been subjected to harsh criticism from
other designers who argue that his contempt for design has lowered the
standards of magazine layout. But his anti-design fervor was sincere, and
his disgust for anything that was visually flabby and antediluvian influenced
all the magazines he touched. The most significant change in Voguefrom
the 1960 s to the 1980 s was its shift from bold elegance to striking
sensationalism. Reversed type and other strong typographic devices (such as
torn edges and screaming headlines) borrowed from the sensationalist press
were used to accentuate motion, catch the eye, and communicate the
message. “Much bolder type is intended for faster communication,”
explained Liberman. “White space does not exist, but a certain power, a
daring has emerged that wasn’t there even when I first used Franklin
Gothic. In retrospect it seems dainty.”
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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