Fashion at the Graveyard 1997

Arsen Savadov made this photograph, titled "Fashion at the Graveyard," with a camera, but really, it's the *staging* that speaks to me. It's as if he paints with real life. There's a surreal quality to the piece, with its juxtaposition of the living and the dead, the beautiful and the macabre. Look at the model on the right, her leg stretched out, foot held high. It's almost like she's admiring her own foot—a celebration of the body in a place where bodies are laid to rest. That tension, between life and death, is the essence of this piece. I'm reminded of the work of artists like Pierre et Gilles, who also create these hyper-real, staged photographs. And it makes you think, doesn't it? How we're all just passing through, striking a pose, even in the face of the inevitable.