LINKE, Armin; CALVO, Corrado
PAPARAZZI

Everyone knows these kinds of photographs from glossy magazines: snapshots of fast boats, dark sunglasses and dalliances. Whoever shows themselves on the beaches of Sardinia also acknowledges those shadowy beings in hiding, lurking behind their cameras. Paparazzi and celebrities are symbiotically intertwined; they produce “secret images” in collaboration. Together with Corrado Calvo—one of the most famous paparazzi to date—Italian photographer Armin Linke publishes a selection of sequences from a conglomeration of 80,000 images from the early aughts.

Through the photographs in this series, a new kind of logic emerges, standing in stark contrast to the images dispersed in mass media; their staged character becomes obvious. Like a comic strip or a film still, the context of the frame only becomes evident in the sequential viewing of the pictures. The photos thus unexpectedly become social documents.

With text collages by Jan Wenzel and additional texts by Giuliana Altea, Antonella Camarda, Doreen Mende, and Maria Nadotti.

Insert: facsimiles of complaints filed by Silvio Berlusconi against Corrado.

[publishers’ note]

Published by Spector Books, 2026
Design by Fabian Bremer, Pacal Storz
Artists' Books / Photography / Cultural Studies