Peter Lindbergh’s new project, The Unknown, represents another chapter in the field of fashion photography. Lindbergh’s images are displayed within an framework and from a novel perspective for fashion photography: The Unknown is a photographic “serial novel” of fashion shootings set against the backdrop of a fictitious landing of beings from outer space. Peter Lindbergh commenced this visual tour de force in 1990, and he has pursued it with cineastic intensity to the present day. The extraterrestrial theme is augmented with elements of Hollywood glamour from the fifties, the German cinema of Fritz Lang, and futuristic scenarios of science fiction movies — much in the manner of Orson Welles or Ridley Scott.

First and foremost there is supermodel Milla Jovovich who began working with Lindbergh at age 13 while he was shooting his incredible series in the Mojave Desert. Milla is the star of this chimeric photo-story, the plot of which deliberately remains enigmatic. The Unknown is a gigantic remix, a visual journey through decades of images that follows no given order or chronology.