Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARIO TESTINO (KASS); ALEX BRAMALL (TESTINO). OPPOSITE PAGE: MARIO TESTINO (PRINCE WILLIAM, MOSS); GENEVIEVE DE MANIO/ COURTESY OF MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS (ROGERS) HOTTEST TICKET Mario Testino's portrait of model Carmen Kass will appear in MFA's new exhibit. The man behind the lens: Mario Testino. face time AS A NEW EXHIBIT OF MARIO TESTINO LIGHTS UP THE MFA, DIRECTOR MALCOLM ROGERS DISCUSSES THE EVOLUTION OF FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY AS FINE ART. BY JARED BOWEN F or Gisele Bündchen, Kate Moss, and a roster of royals including Prince William and Kate Middleton, Mario Testino is the go-to photographer. The Londoner's splashy photography appears in magazines including Vogue and Vanity Fair, and in campaigns for top fashion houses including Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, and Versace. In October the Museum of Fine Arts cele- brates 30 years of Testino's photography with his first-ever US museum show, "Mario Testino: In Your Face." The exhibition, along with a companion show, "Mario Testino: British Royal Portraits," welcomes patrons into his celeb- rity-centric world. On view are highly stylized portraits and gritty party shots, 64 BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM fashion photography and nudes, color prints and black and whites. The show may also serve as vindication for Malcolm Rogers, MFA's director. He was still relatively new to the museum in 1996 when he opened a Herb Ritts photogra- phy show to a firestorm of controversy. At that time, fashion photography was considered too commercial and not quite serious enough for a museum set- ting, but now shows by the likes of Ritts and Testino are very much the norm. Boston Common spoke with Rogers about the new show. Do you expect to be met with controversy again all these years later? It's interesting that Herb Ritts was recently on the walls of The Getty