Join us for an exciting first look at the prestigious 2024 Pirelli calendar – featuring groundbreaking famous faces ranging from entertainment to royalty, captured by renowned contemporary photographer Prince Gyasi. We sat down with Prince Gyasi himself, actress Teyana Taylor, author Margot Lee Shetterly, and director Jeymes Samuel to discuss heartwarming moments during their making of the calendar, their inspiring upcoming year’s goals, and emotional revelations about what it personally meant to be a part of Pirelli’s legendary art piece as we collectively welcome a shining new year for 2024.
Introduction
The iconic Pirelli calendar has been called “the most prestigious calendar in the world,” and is a glamour-trade calendar published by the Pirelli company’s UK subsidiary. The calendar is known for its exclusivity, only gifted to a select elite crowd and a valuable piece for collectors in the realm. This coming 60th anniversary edition for 2024’s release revolves around the theme “Timeless,” echoing this excerpt of the edition’s photographer Prince Gyasi’s own manifesto:
To those who would be timeless
We do not seek fame.
We do not seek success.
We do not seek validation.
Disciples of our own abilities, we defy those who say that we cannot, that we’re too old, too young,
too different, too much or too little.
For Gyasi, “time is not a solitary path from life and death,” and timelessness is certainly not a lack of growth; it’s more about continuing to push forward, according to the artist. “I think my whole journey was surprising,” the photographer muses. “Where I’m from, it’s like there’s a limitation. A lot of you would think you need to do something crazy, selling your soul, or have a lot of connections to be able to get to a place where you have the assets or the opportunity to make sure your voice is heard. Timelessness is also about quality and whether it stands the test of time. It’s not about how long something has been here – it’s how the message it carries, how strong it is. And so me assembling this [Pirelli calendar lineup of] people was just bringing all the people together that played an individual role in my life. I feel like they weren’t in that focus, or even as determined as they are, they wouldn’t have been here, and I wouldn’t have had any type of path to follow to even get myself to this place.” Gyasi explains this is why he included a symbolic younger version of himself in the Pirelli calendar, to illustrate this path of growth through timelessness and community.
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Prince Gyasi famously lives with synesthesia, a uniquely simultaneous perception of multiple neurological stimuli as one blended sensory experience. In Gyasi’s experience, this often results in associating specific colour palettes with memories, sights, sounds, and other sensory intakes. As a visual artist, he’s become known for his use of these intrinsic combinations to take his viewer on a surreal journey that feels like it could absolutely exist within an alternate reality. Jeymes Samuel, creative film director and part of the subject lineup for the calendar shot by Gyasi, praises the photographer’s innate ability to bring a totally alien landscape to life in a hyperrealistic fashion. “I love that it feels tangible. You don’t even question it,” gushes Samuel. Gyasi laughs in response, and says he’s humbled by this relayed high praise. In his perspective he simply picked up what he loved in his past as a painter, and states he merely brought that into his photography for the two worlds to meet. “I’m from an art background. Where I come from, photography wasn’t really respected – they just see us all capturing reality. So I thought, let me satisfy them. Pick up what I have from art school and what I learned from art, and incorporate it into this medium that people don’t really respect to create a different world.”
The artist goes on to clarify that he also didn’t actually start this photography journey with an iPhone, as so often it’s reported. A bit sheepishly, he explains: “I know a lot of people say that, because it’s what they saw me do. But I had a camera! I picked up the iPhone later because I wasn’t happy with that camera, and I thought it was so powerful to have a tool like that so accessible.” For Gyasi, it’s about giving the youth power, letting them understand it’s about the mind and the message when creating, not which tools you have. Gyasi advises, “I say tackle the message first. So what I did then was just create.” And create he did – the photographer started an entire community of young people in Africa that shot photographs with their iPhones and found a reason to express themselves, even when educational resources were lacking. Prince Gyasi values not only improvement in his own work, but fostering and bolstering this sense of community to elevate others alongside him.
On set, this feeling of community empowerment and enabling was clear. The 2024 Pirelli calendar was shot in both Ghana (the photographer’s hometown) and London, and Prince Gyasi wanted his creative team and subjects to feel just as at home as he was. He recalls: “we had fun; we had a lot of bands and DJs, and our producer worked tirelessly to create this atmosphere. We had great chefs…a chef from Italy, another chef from Africa. You can feel it, that we were like family when you got to the set, that’s what I remember. I think every single day was my favourite. I remember saying that this world we built…it felt like it was home already. I didn’t have to stretch, I didn’t have to try.”
That’s a sentiment widely echoed. Actress Teyana Taylor who featured in the calendar said she felt at home and safe on set, like she could be herself. Looking back at the making of the calendar, she couldn’t say enough positive things about the “Black excellence on set.” It was like “a garden of roses – everything that meant something to me was there.” Prince Gyasi’s attention to detail within even the small things stood out to her. “I felt like I was everything in this shoot. A queen, a mother, an alien. I simply was, everything all at once,” Taylor said. “It meant a lot to be in my element, without having to do it all on my own. I felt seen. It was simply surreal.” Director Jeymes Samuel echoed this. He’s seen Prince Gyasi in his element before, but never had the privilege to work with him on set. “But seeing him in his element, how he works and creates and flows between ideas was really an amazing thing to me… A lot of times we experience things and don’t realize we’re going through a moment of brilliance until afterwards. But the environment that Prince creates, you know it as it’s happening. It really takes a true creative to do that,” Samuel mused about Gyasi’s uniquely believable surrealism. Author Margot Lee Shetterly compared the community on set to transcending daily life. She reminisced upon the glamorous outfits and luxe jewelry in wardrobe, relating that working on the Pirelli calendar for her was “such a special treat. It’s something that would never happen to me in normal life, so it was a little fantasy.” Gyasi seems to excel at bringing each of his subjects into his own special world of fantastical colour, where even the impossible is just within reach.
Gyasi’s synesthesia ascribes the essences of community and love both to the colour white. White, being a true mixture of all colours into one tone in terms of light, feels fitting for what he’s built here in these concepts and how he’s brought Pirelli subjects from all over the world and different industries together into the project. “Love and community,” says Gyasi, “the reason why I love this so much is because they both have the same colour. So a lot of people see love as red. I see that as white because of the word, it’s felt in the way it sounds, with the phonetics and how I hear it. Perfect love casts out fear, builds community. And community is the only way that we all can grow.” For the artist, it’s more about building a meaningful legacy and sense of community through opportunities such as the Pirelli calendar, rather than simply taking on a project. Margot Lee Shetterly feels the same – “[Gyasi is] this young, energetic photographer who had this vision that was so very specific: this all-Black calendar with a Black photographer from Africa, this sort of global Black vision that at the same time is very transcendent in terms of art and color and beauty. That was really exciting. It was really fun to understand his vision and then to participate in bringing that to life.” Jeymes Samuel connected with the artist’s work on a personal level as well, sharing that he was honoured to be included in such a special historical moment for the first Black photographer of the Pirelli calendar, alongside the publication’s 60th anniversary. He mentioned Gyasi’s world-building, in relation to his own experience as a filmmaker and musician, explaining that it felt like he’d created a home for each of them through his own vision brought to life. When asked her thoughts on Gyasi’s world and the Pirelli calendar’s inclusion, Teyana Taylor simply had one impactful word to say: iconic.
What’s next for Gyasi, Samuel, Taylor, and Shetterly? Each creative has strong hope for the coming year, starting off on such a motivational high note together via this latest iteration of the Pirelli calendar for 2024. Jeymes Samuel is looking forward to releasing his new film, a biblical epic titled “The Book of Clarence” that he’s proud to say will be the first of its kind, a new vision entwined with his unique way of storytelling where viewers are active participants. Teyana Taylor reminisces that she was “busy and blessed” in 2023, and wants to keep that momentum going with a new road up ahead – she’s anticipating things that are bigger, better, more blessed, and with more prayers to keep growing. Margot Lee Shetterly is entering her own spotlight after shining the light on unheard voices with her last novel “Hidden Figures;” the acclaimed author is working on a new book focused on untold stories in the Black business environment, a second-installment to her first release and a story close to her own heart.
As for Prince Gyasi, he’s working on “a bunch of things” – an agency, new installations, evolving paintings as an artist, new projects. The ambitious creative certainly has a busy year ahead of him. We’re excited to see what inspiring new work this impactful young artist will turn out, as well as what new communities are built in his wake of boosting others and molding worlds where anything seems possible. Though his focus on community and love via art may be painted white in Gyasi’s perception, in our world of contemporary art and photography, it certainly seems like he’s shining brightly golden.
A special thank you to Prince Gyasi (@princejyesi), Jeymes Samuel (@jeymes), Teyana Taylor (@teyanataylor), and Margot Lee Shetterly (@margotleeshetterly) for your candid interviews and for welcoming us into your world of the Pirelli calendar creation and inner thoughts on this project and your own inspiring accomplishments.
