Jacob Elordi Stars in Bottega Veneta's Dreamlike New Campaign

"Inspired by scuola metafisican Giorgio de Chirico and surrealist René Magritte, Michals is known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar contexts, using irrational juxtapositions to provoke questions about the boundaries of reality and representation in nature. His new short film was shot at his New York home, and captures Elordi in black and white with props and motifs that have appeared throughout Michals' distinguished oeuvre - a convex mirror, a suspended feather, a crystal ball."

"Elordi recites a poem by Michals that shares its name with the project, and was first published in 2001 as part of Michals' photo book Questions with Answers. "In this chimera's hallucination, the strange become the ordinary without surprise, and desire and terror thrive side by side," says Elordi as a white feather dances before him. "In lucid dreams, the dreamer comes awake and sees that what he thought was real was fake.""

""Photography spills the beans and tells you the facts of what you see," says Michals, whose interest in the medium began with photojournalism. He soon became intrigued by how toying with mediums through exposure, text, or serialising could manipulate the message. Subsequently, Michals began to use hand-written musings and poetry to add a further dimension to his images and film."

Surrealism is presented as suggesting an alternative profound reality that contradicts ordinary facts. Jacob Elordi collaborated with Bottega Veneta and draws on a long-standing engagement with surrealism dating back to the 1960s. The project premiered at Curzon Mayfair ahead of a post-Halloween screening of Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein. Michals draws inspiration from Giorgio de Chirico and René Magritte and stages familiar objects in unfamiliar contexts to probe boundaries of reality and representation. The short film, shot at Michals' New York home, captures Elordi reciting a Michals poem amid recurring props such as a convex mirror, a suspended feather, and a crystal ball. Michals uses exposure, text, serialising, and handwritten poetry to manipulate photographic meaning and add dimension.

Read at AnOther