As his first exhibition of photography opens in LA, the visionary auteur tells Dazed about his relationship with the medium and finding an unlikely assistant in Emma Stone
With the arrival of his photo book Dear God, the Parthenon is still broken last May, Yorgos Lanthimos re-introduced fans to a world they already knew via his lens, having absorbed the distinctive attributes of the filmmaker’s work viewing Poor Things some months earlier. The book however, published by Void, offered a new iteration of this oftentimes hilarious and frequently contorted landscape: dressed in an earthy cloth cover, the images inside possessed a stillness that went beyond their physical state, the movie’s excesses not exactly discarded but largely softened, making it possible to conjure new narratives.
i shall sing these songs beautifully followed in September (echoing the short pause between the respective films), with an alternative reading of the three universes unveiled in his 2024 film Kinds of Kindness. Published by Mack, the monograph was a stylistically slicker affair than its predecessor (and strikingly less front-facing than its on-screen counterpart), predominantly shot in black and white and with an iridescent exterior. Together, the two works, for all their contrasting aesthetic principles, highlight the myriad of possibilities that preoccupy the Greek auteur, even after shooting has come to an end.
Indeed, Lanthimos, who announced his singularity with 2009’s Dogtooth, the markedly visceral account of a Greek family’s bizarrely solitary living arrangement, is the architect of some of contemporary cinema’s most absurd storytelling; manufacturing new realms of curiosity, leaning into the surreal and typically recalibrating our ideas about human relationships. In Yorgos Lanthimos, Photographs, his first gallery exhibition (currently showing at Los Angeles’ Webber until 24 May, 2025), the director expands his creative practice even further, with a new edit of the portraits, quiet moments and still lifes debuted in his recent books.
“I’ve really strived to have something out there that is not the films,” he says, speaking to Dazed from Athens, his birth city which, having returned a few years ago after a decade in London, he is gradually learning to love again. Traversing the Greek capital for inspiration since his homecoming, in 2023 he made a short film with his regular collaborator Emma Stone, which was subsequently published as an editorial in W Magazine (earlier, in 2019, the pair worked together on a shoot for the publication’s annual Directors Issue). Then there was the series of commercial projects with Gucci, an additional precursor to the new show, which culminated in a book titled Ωοτοκία. “The process seemed at the time like a rehearsal for a future play,” he recalled.
We talked to Yorgos Lanthimos in the days leading up to his exhibition opening to discuss his relationship with photography, his desire to constantly arrive at a new perspective, and his surprisingly relatable love-hate relationship with Instagram.
What was your initial introduction to photography like?
Yorgos Lanthimos: It was pretty straightforward. At some point I realised I was interested in filmmaking, then realised the basis of it, technically, is photography. [I started] taking pictures of silly things around me, getting to know how film works. It became a thing I enjoyed, but never took seriously. It was more about the act of doing it and gathering memories.
More recently, your approach has shifted and you’ve published photo books, sharing pictures made on the sets of Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness in a more ‘serious’ way.
Yorgos Lanthimos: I’m quite shy, so it wasn’t easy for me to just go out and take pictures of people. I found it easier on sets – everybody kind of expected it, I could just say ‘portrait time’, which I did. I wasn’t taking pictures that had any value to them, outside of documenting the [filmmaking] process, but I started thinking, is there a different perspective? Are there different kinds of images I could be creating from this world we created?
I started taking these large format portraits [on Poor Things], but I didn’t know if that would amount to something. On the next film [Kinds of Kindness], I was more conscious about this, my other job, which was more productive because we were outside in the world. I managed to create this body of work that was very different to the film; it was black and white and I used flash, so the atmosphere was totally different. Slowly, I’ve consciously become interested in photography as a very separate thing to filmmaking.
Was there any specific moment or feeling maybe, that marked this change? Obviously, you’d already shot some editorials and worked with Gucci.
Yorgos Lanthimos: I have a certain technical proficiency with photography, and a certain aesthetic, so it allowed me to do these things for fun. It’s a thing of its own. But if we’re looking for a particular turning point, it was Poor Things. We spent so much time, energy and money [on the set] that we loved for a few weeks, and then to see it in shambles, it was kind of emotional. So I managed to find a way of capturing something that could stand on its own.
“[Photography is] a beautiful thing that gives me some kind of calm, compared to the chaos of filmmaking” – Yorgos Lanthimos
And you built a darkroom during Poor Things, right?
Yorgos Lanthimos: I wasn’t happy with the lab where we were and felt it’d be better if we did it ourselves. Emma Stone helped me, every day after filming I would scan and she would process. We got addicted, it was kind of meditation. Doing this tactile thing, concentrating on something very different to what we were doing before. It just started out of necessity, but that gave me momentum, and I actually built a darkroom in Athens next to my editing suite.
How often are you in the darkroom at the moment?
Yorgos Lanthimos: These days not often, because I’m editing another film. I’m mostly taking a few weeks off to forget what I’m editing, going around taking pictures, then back to editing. As soon as I finish this film I want to take some time to concentrate on photography, not have to think about prepping a new film. Because I’ve gotten to love taking pictures, sometimes more than film, which can be excruciating and complicated and difficult. Taking a picture of a tree, you process it, print it, and it’s there in front of you the same day. It’s a beautiful thing that gives me some kind of calm, compared to the chaos of filmmaking.
Your films often inspire a visceral reaction. How do you hope people engage with your photographs?
Yorgos Lanthimos: The beautiful thing about photography is, as a medium, it’s freer from conventions – film is very constrained by conventional narrative. I take these pictures and put them together, sometimes they work together, sometimes I have some kind of narrative, but I don’t expect other people to make the same narrative [as me]. Making an edit for a book or exhibition can be hard, because there are so many possibilities, and a lot of them are valid.
You’re about to exhibit at Webber in LA. How did that come about?
Yorgos Lanthimos: [Publisher] Michael Mack works with Webber and they knew the work, I guess it made sense for the photographs to be exhibited. We’ve managed to design the exhibition in a similar way to the books, which are very different. The pictures from i shall sing these songs beautifully are much more conventionally installed, then there’s this smaller room with pictures from Dear God, the Parthenon is still broken in different sizes. It’s my first time, and it’s been a really joyful experience. All of the prints are from the darkroom; I’m flying out tomorrow to install, and I’ll see them framed for the first time, which is extremely exciting. I don’t think I’ve ever seen pictures of mine so big, like an actual framed print.
Is there any one image that feels especially significant?
Yorgos Lanthimos: Not really. The ones you gather, and how you do that, what they all mean together as a bunch of pictures, that’s when it starts making sense. There’s something about them being all together, that creates some kind of reaction.
The beautiful thing about photography is, as a medium, it’s freer from conventions – film is very constrained by conventional narrative – Yorgos Lanthimos
Makes sense. I wanted to ask you about Instagram. There’s an account in your name with just a series of backs of heads from 2014…
Yorgos Lanthimos: That’s not me! Could you tell people [laughs]. I actually reported the account because everybody’s tagging, assuming it's me. I have an account but just to look at stuff, I don’t engage in that way.
You’re not much of a poster?
Yorgos Lanthimos: I don’t find it… What is it that I don’t find? I guess it’s a love-hate relationship. I love looking at stuff, but I don’t want to be creating. But never say never, if there’s a specific idea, like the backs of heads… [laughs].
What about exhibitions, do you make time to engage much?
Yorgos Lanthimos: As much as I can. I love getting books, I’m always looking at what the new books are. It’s so much easier now than when I was a film student, especially in Greece, there was like one book shop. I guess there weren’t as many books then, it was the classics that you would find and cherish. Now there’s so much.
Have you acquired anything special recently?
Yorgos Lanthimos: I bought some books from Mack. I really love Rosalind Fox Solomon’s last book [A Woman I Once Knew], it’s one of the most powerful things I’ve seen. Then there’s this book I really liked, Brantville by Melinda Blauvelt, it’s these 4x5 portraits in a small town, I think Canada. They’re so funny and beautiful, which I really loved.
Finally, what was the last thing you took a picture of?
Yorgos Lanthimos: I photographed on [the Greek island of] Tinos. I’ve started taking a lot of pictures there, the landscape and the human presence in the landscape. That’s the last thing that I did. Hopefully something will come out of it.
Yorgos Lanthimos, Photographs is on display at Webber, 939 S. Sante Fe Avenue, Los Angeles, until 24 May 2025.