Stripping the audiovisual culture with Matt Lambert

Matt Lambert opens up a voyeuristic lens of intimate moments in the lives of young people with changing sexual identities that redefine love and sexuality in the modern era. By subverting masculinity and recycling gender clichés, he has underscored more than ever his iconic LGBT status in the world of film and photography. Set the lens to see through Lambert’s shots.

Queer eroticism and gay intimacy in the 21st century become the main themes of the film by the Berlin-based L.A. filmmaker and photographer. His background in fine arts and animation, as well as his experience as a commercial director in NY, have influenced his infinite artistic portfolio that portrays from youth communities in Berlin to Yves Saint Laurent campaigns.

Already in 2015 Lambert was named one of the ten filmmakers of the future by The Tribeca Film Festival, while Dazed nominated him in its list of the top 100 creative influences. A year later, he represented PRETTYBIRD on the ‘Make Some Room’ panel at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity.

One of the most outstanding works of the creative, who won the award for “best cinematography in a music video” at the Camerimage Festival in 2016, was the full-length clip ‘High School Never Ends’ by Mykki Blanco, in which he projected an adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy, ‘Romeo and Juliet’. After several works together, Lambert is today the only creative director of the visual production of the american rapper who is a reference in the LGBT community.

In this neo-visual universe of films and images, art direction and fashion become essential languages in Lambert’s reading. As in his list of photographic books, in which we find shots like ‘Keim’, ‘Home’ or ‘Pleasure Park’ that capture the intimacy of gay youth in an explicit way, without censorship. In them, the sweat of the bodies is highlighted by neon lights that impregnate the halo of the sequence; the same sequence that is repeated in short films like ‘His Sweat’ or ‘We are lovers’.

The connection between youth, color and sexual freedom are positioned as key words in his synopsis. Thus, through these concepts, the creative director lights up the normativity in works that range from narrative cinema, experimental documentary, music or video. That is why in his showcase of clients we find publications, firms or personalities of the caliber of Patrick Wolf, Hercules and Love Affair, Austra, Gucci, Channel 4, BBC, i-D, Wonderland, Marc Jacobs, Dazed or Butt.

FASHION ARCHIVES

In late 2018, Lambert joined Stefano Pilati to lead the visual identity of his new brand Random Identities. Thus, the former creative director of Yves Saint Laurent launched a short film directed by the filmmaker that reflected the spirit, aesthetics and ethics of the brand in a journey of consciousness within the intimate notions of identity.

Another of his most outstanding works on the scene have been his fashion films for Gucci. So, the film director took us to explore the new FW19 in the Gucci film ‘Balztanz’. In ‘Gucci: In Bloom’, Alessandro Michele‘s essence of romance and mystery was connected to the intimacy and suggestiveness of Lambert’s ethos. Myth and fantasy were woven throughout the work that captured the minutiae and whims of idle youth and celebrated those fleeting moments that remain forever.

Matt also recorded the Givenchy SS17 Pre-Collection presentation video starring Bella Hadid. He connected with Charles Jeffrey Loverboy‘s surrealism to make a filmic immersion of his world in a short film in which he premiered the womenswear collection as part of his ‘Innovators’ series. As well as other films for Berluti, Rick Owens and Diesel, he also directed the visceral campaign for Comme des Garçons Parfums in which he reflected a psychotic interpretation of perfume through 10 ‘Clash Videos’.

Lambert (@dielamb) also had his own episode for Marc Jacobs with ‘The Feeling’, in which the firm presented the Marc by Marc Jacobs SS15′ eyewear collection through an ode to the long, hot summer days of youth, among friends, endless nights and continuous dawns.

After the international trip we land in Spain. In another of the artist’s most outstanding works: Lambert’s campaign for Palomo Spain AW19. In it, he presented the 1916 collection that introduced the new Palomo’s man.

It was a celebration of queer romance, of intimacy and of that relationship between young experimenters who express their limitless freedom. Thus, it transported us to a romantic and museum universe that focused on the past to reinvent the present and anticipate the future: the maxims of Matt Lambert.