PARIS — Rafael Pavarotti took an interest in photography as a child growing up in Pará, Brazil.
Now more than two decades later, his photographs of Rihanna, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Harry Styles plus some of fashion’s biggest names are coming to Paris. More than 130 pieces of his work, including those for Chanel and Dior, will be exhibited at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs with the support of Brazilian luxury group Iguatemi S.A.
Iguatemi vice chairman Carlos Jereissati said the group’s support of the exhibit is a way to bring Brazilian creativity “into dialogue with the world,” and as part of its long-standing commitment to Brazilian art and culture.
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Opening Friday and running through May 2, 2027, the exhibition is Pavarotti’s first major museum presentation. Here, he discusses the show, his work and more.
WWD: You grew up in Pará, surrounded by the colors, landscapes and cultural references of the Amazon. How much of that childhood is still present in your work?
Rafael Pavarotti: I think it is in everything, even when it isn’t immediately visible. I had a very creative and very free childhood in Pará. I grew up in a time before phones, so there was a very physical relationship with the world. We invented our own games and discovered things through the body — dancing, swimming in the river, working with our hands, building things.
My father is an artist and, to this day, he spends much of his time in his studio developing and creating, so I was always very close to that process. When I started photographing at 12, I also became much more conscious of my environment. All of these things were being absorbed by me, some consciously, but much of it without me even realizing it.
When I look at my earliest photographs, I recognize the same desire I have today: this hunger to understand the nature of things, how we celebrate, how we tell stories, how we move through processes of healing, and how human emotions find a form. There are very mysterious paths between an experience and a photograph. For me, the work is that journey.
WWD: Fashion has changed in the way it talks about representation. Do you feel that change is becoming structural, or are we seeing another cycle of attention around diversity?
R.P.: I find it interesting when we talk about diversity as if it were a new idea. Fashion simply spent a very long time failing to reflect a reality that has always existed. The world has always been multiple.
There have been important advances in recent years, and it would be unfair to ignore them, but we also have to pay attention to what happens when circumstances change. In moments of uncertainty, there is a tendency to return to what is familiar, to what has already been validated, to what appears to carry less risk. And that is precisely when we begin to see the difference between structural transformation and a cycle of attention.
Representation should never be understood only through who appears in front of the camera. It is about who is making decisions, who is given the opportunity to build a career, who has access to resources, and who remains when the conversation is no longer fashionable.
Fashion carries an enormous responsibility because it participates in shaping our collective imagination. For decades, it had an extremely limited vision of who could be part of that picture. The way forward is to truly expand what we are able to see and envision. Multiplicity is not a trend that appeared in the last few years. It is simply the way the world has always been.
WWD: At a time when fashion imagery is increasingly shaped by social media, AI and an enormous volume of content, what can a photographer still bring that technology cannot?
R.P.: A photograph can feel absolutely contemporary and age within six months. Another can have been made 50 years ago and still find something in us that remains unanswered. For me, there is something very powerful about an image being able to belong to its time without being trapped by it.
We are producing and consuming images at a speed that is almost impossible to absorb. In that context, perhaps one of the most radical things a photograph can do is remain — remain in the mind, in the body.
Technology can learn an extraordinary amount about images. It can recognize patterns, reproduce codes, combine references and produce results that will probably continue to surprise us. The photographer, however, is subject to something that no technology participates in quite the same way: the fact of being alive.
We age, we desire, we lose people, we change our minds, we make mistakes, we fall in love, we carry contradictions. And we encounter other people who are also moving through all of this. When two people come together to make a photograph, an enormous number of things are happening in that space that neither of them can completely control. Perhaps that is precisely where a particular force in photography continues to exist.
Technology can produce an image. Being alive within it is another story.
WWD: The Musée des Arts Décoratifs is presenting your work not simply as fashion photography. What does that recognition mean to you?
R.P.: There is something very profound about seeing the work become part of a history much larger than my own. Many of these photographs were created within fashion, but they also carry the people, cultures and questions of the time in which they were made. They speak about who is seen, how we are seen, and what kinds of images become part of our collective visual history.
To have the museum recognize that dimension of the work means a great deal to me. It makes me think about where I come from, about my heritage, and about everything that shaped my eye until here. To see these images now in dialogue with the history the museum holds gives them another life and another context. With time, they can also become a document of this moment and of the changes we have lived through.