"Steven Klein has become the fashion world’s current superstar by understanding how to be transgressive and commercial at the same time." These few lines from a recent interview article, published on New York Metro right before the Re-Invention Tour started, are probably the best way to describe in words the complexity and the haunting charm of the work of one of the contemporary masters of fashion photography.

Klein studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design and has then worked since the nineties on erotically provocative campaigns with iconic celebrities such as Brad Pitt, David and Victoria Beckham and, of course, Madonna.

Kelin has become famous for his compositions that feature an expressiveness of the body, using provocative poses or strikingly glaring colour contrasts that make his pictures get the appearance of real paintings.

The live show then brought even some more Klein to Madonna fans, with two of the Re-Invention video projections featuring brand new footage from the Tour Programme photo session ("Vogue"), and previously unseen video recordings from the original "Madonna Unbound" portfolio ("The Beast Within").

Madonna by Steven Klein is again haunting and bizarre at the same time, maybe just a bit more familiar now that the fans recognize the classic poses from the Tour video projections, but always amazing and breathtaking.

Steven Klein's figurative language is indeed very complex.
It mixes sexuality, aggression, vulnerability, mystic obscuration and references to Madonna's entire career. Klein always explains that his aim was to make this project becoming a collaboration with Madonna as performance artist. His presence as a photographer becomes a conduit that analyzes her below the surface.

After the first show at Deitch Projects in New York the X-STaTIC Pro=CeSS exhibition has been travelling the world and in the meanwhile Klein hasn't stop taking pictures of Madonna.
The August 2004 issue of Vogue Paris showed Madonna backstage and rehearsing her Re-Invention show, with brand new images introducing some new original "colour on b/W" techniques that gave us more breathtaking pictures of her.

Then it was German Zoo Magazine's turn to premiere more exclusive shots from the Reinvention Tour rehearsals, with the dancers bringing Madonna to the electirc chair in the "Lament" segment of the show.

Just like a special versions of the songs "X-STaTIC Pro=CeSS" and "The Beast Within" were used in the first New York City exhinition to comment its videos, a reversed version of "Vogue" can be heard in Berlin.
The new videos are put together with unedited footage from what was incorporated in the elaborated "Vogue" video backdrop by MissJones - mixed with CGI imagery and 3D architectural animations. Madonna is feature here in a neutral environment and without any electronic color enhancement that was added to the final cut of the tour backdrop at a later stage.

An entire wall of the staircase multistorey space of the gallery has been devoted to the new "Chair" photographs taken during the tour rehearsals. Madonna and her dancers are portraied at the end of "Die Another Day" and during the "Lament" performance. Madonna is wearing a rehearsal costume and the giant screen in the back is not displaying any projection - but appears coloured in red instead.

This way the imagery becomes more strong and the visual is perhaps more violent - but once again captures the essence of this peculiar moment of the show.

Another brand new set of pictures is the one premiered in the Re-Invention Tour Programme and is known as the "Hallway" serie. An entire room of the gallery is devoted to these black and white pictures, while the images in motion from the same set - used at the end of the "Vogue" performance - had a strong turquoise dominant tone.

From what we hear, the Madonna/Steven Klein collaboration is not over yet.
Of course, this is nothing but exciting news.