THE INCREDIBLE ARTISTRY OF COUPLES NOW

The phrase “Great minds think alike” doesn’t really apply to creative duos. For them, it’s more like “Great minds think differently, and with awesome collaboration.” Today we are featuring 3 incredibly talented creative artist couples who are paired in life, in love, and in art.

JEREMY WEISS & CLAIRE WEISS

Jeremy & Claire Weiss, of Day 19, merge their minds, bodies, and talents to create photos that tell multi-layered stories.

Their "Nightswimming" series for Monster Children magazine, for example, have a both fresh innocence and an ancient depth.

If Renoir were a photographer, he might strive for the Weiss’s use of ambient light. Color and form negotiate to render a powerful visual. It holds you and does not want to let you go. And the longer you stay, the more you experience.

The couple met in college and took photo classes there together. A photo rep had the idea for Jeremy and Claire to work together.

The couple started shooting together in 2006, when they moved to LA. Claire waited tables, while Jeremy worked as a movie extra until they could sell enough of their work. They went on tour with emerging bands and sold their tour photos.

Jeremy and Claire got a lucky break when they got a commercial assignment. They totally rocked it and they were off! They built a commercial studio, shoot ad campaigns for brands like Pepsi, Google, and Converse. But their hearts are still entwined with art…

They are each other’s biggest inspiration. They enjoy bouncing ideas off of each other. They also compete, upping each other’s game.

ALLORA & CALZADILLA

Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla are an artist couple who create performance, sculpture, video and sound art installations. They incorporate an intriguing variety of techniques.

While Allora is from the US and Calzadilla was born in Cuba, the couple now lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico. They represented the US in the 2011 Venice Biennale.

Their collaboration began in 1995 after they met in Florence, while studying abroad.

Allora received a Masters of Science degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was a Whitney Museum fellow. While Calzadilla studied art at Escuela de Artes Plasticas in San Juan and at Bard College.

They soon started to explore visual expressions of national identity, religion, militarism and democracy.

Allora & Calzadilla are fascinated by history’s relationships with contemporary realities. Filled with irony, punch, and grace, it is impossible to experience their works without thinking… and thinking some more… and thinking even more.

Their works have been exhibited at MoMA, Haus der Kunst, Serpentine Gallery, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Stedelijk Museum, Kunsthalle Zurich, and National Museum of Art in Oslo, among other top museums and galleries worldwide.

INEZ & VINOODH

Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin are a Dutch couple who has built a brilliant photography career working together in the fashion world.

They met at the Vogue Academy of fashion design in Amsterdam in the early 1980’s. Their duo began in 1986. They collaborate on all aspects of the photoshoot, from concept, to styling, to lighting, to post-production, to technical choices.

The couple produces images that are at once beautiful, dark, erotic, slick, luxurious, spare, real, and hyper-real. They tend toward both glamour and extreme. Their backdrops are created from stock, picture library imagery.

They’ve formed a posse of collaborators to create their look, including cutting edge stylists, art directors, hair and make-up artists, lighting specialists, models and celebrities. Their photos have a lyrical quality to them, which they achieve in part because of their collaboration with choreographer Stephen Galloway.

Their work has appeared in International Vogue, W, Visionaire, Vanity Fair, and Harper’s Bazaar, among others -- as well as for major luxury fashion houses, like Gaultier, Dior, Gucci, Balmain, Chanel, and Lanvin, to name just a few.

The couple has photographed four of The New York Times Magazine’s renowned “Great Performers In Film!” portfolios, featuring portraits of Clint Eastwood, Mickey Rourke, Bill Murray, Daniel Day-Lewis, Natalie Portman, Colin Firth, Shirley MacLaine, George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Mila Kunis, Michael Douglas, Tom Cruise, Javier Bardem, and Julianne Moore.

Inez and Vinoodh produced stunning intimate black and white photos of Sofia Loren, Penélope Cruz, Naomi Watts, Hilary Swank and Lou Doillon, shot in a private bedroom setting, for the legendary Pirelli calendar.

Inez and Vinoodh directed Lady Gaga's 2013 music video for "Applause."

In addition to their commercial career, this couple has a prolific art career. Their work is on exhibition in solo shows about every two or three years.

You can find a wonderful retrospective of 25 of their years together in Pretty Much Everything, a limited edition 2-volume book designed in collaboration with M/M (Paris), published by Taschen.

Read more about Beautiful Couples, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including 10 beautiful Couples Books Now, 10 Beautiful Animal Couples Now & Forever and Crazy Beautiful Sweets for Your Sweetie Now.

Enter your own images and ideas about Beautiful Couples in this week’s creative Photo Competition. Open for entries now until 11:59 p.m. PT on 02.15.15. If you are reading this after that date, check out the current BN Creative Competition, and enter!

IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Photo: by Jeremy & Claire Weiss. Swimming and Jumping.
2. Photo: by Jeremy & Claire Weiss. Bike Water.
3. Photo: by Jeremy & Claire Weiss. Night Swimming.
4. Photo: by Jeremy & Claire Weiss. House Party.
5. Photo: by Jeremy & Claire Weiss. Courtesy of Pepsi. Molly & Steve.
6. Photo: by Jeremy & Claire Weiss. Day XIX.
7. Photo: by Mark Seliger for Vogue Italia. Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla.
8. Photo: by Allora & Calzadilla. Forecast.
9. Image: by Allora & Calzadilla. Stop, Repair, Prepare: Variations of Ode to Joy for a Prepared Piano.
10. Photo: by Allora & Calzadilla. Hope Hippo, 2005 Mud, Whistle, Daily Newspaper, Reader. Installation View: “Always a Little Further” 51st International Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia.
11. Photo: Courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh. Inez & Vinoodh.
12. Photo: by Inez & Vinoodh. Sky Ferreira.
13. Photo: by Inez & Vinoodh. For W Magazine. Kate Moss.
14. Photo: By Inez & Vinoodh. For The New York Time T-Magazine. Julianne Moore.
15. Photo: By Inez & Vinoodh. Image for Vogue Paris.
16. Photo: By Inez & Vinoodh. Lady Gaga.
17. Photo: By Inez & Vinoodh. Lady Gaga.