Posted inArt

Vice and Virtue: Helmut Newton’s World Without Men

BERLIN — A week ago, Vice magazine gambled on a potentially-sexist-but-potentially-thought-provoking fashion spread — and lost. “Last Words” featured fictionalized portraits of female authors looking unaccountably sexy moments before or after their suicides: a slender Sylvia Plath poised before an open oven, an immaculately made-up Virginia Wolf wading in a picturesque river. Predictably enough, the spread provoked vitriolic backlash in the world of feminist journalism.