2009 PIRELLI CALENDAR UNVEILED

24th November 2008

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Berlin, November 20, 2008 - The 2009 edition of the Pirelli Calendar,  
cult object for more than forty years among connoisseurs of  
photography, beauty and cultural evolution, was unveiled today in a  
world premiere held at The Station in Berlin, the historic train  
depot that connected the capital with Dresden, Vienna and Prague in  
the late 19th century.

The setting for the 36th “Cal” is the landscape of Botswana, where  
last May famed photographer Peter Beard spent ten days immortalizing  
seven internationally renowned models. Beard, who lived in Kenya for  
thirty years, is one of the world’s greatest interpreters of the  
mystery and charm of Africa.

After last year’s China edition, where Patrick Demarchelier artfully  
juxtaposed the atmospheres of ancient tea houses with the modernity  
of China’s metropolises, the Pirelli Calendar moves to one of the few  
places in Africa that remain wild and unspoiled, free of the ravages  
of war and with the highest concentration of wildlife.

Peter Beard has chosen an authentic and ancestral land that is born  
of the interpenetration of two different worlds: the aquatic oasis of  
the Okavango River delta and the arid expanse of the Kalahari Desert.  
A place that has been spared both the exploitation of the land and  
the impoverishment of its resources, the ideal setting for the  
photographer’s representation of nature as a metaphysical entity,  
always in motion, source of infinite creativity, within whose rhythms  
and laws everything must begin and end.

A nature described as powerful yet at the same time wounded, with an  
harmonic view of the environment that draws on the spirit of 19th-
century American naturalism. Through Beard’s lens, nature unleashes  
an angry cry and rebels against humanity’s incapacity to combine  
growth and development with wisdom and respect for diversity. It is  
in this context that elephants, the real protagonists of this edition  
of the Cal, struggle to survive, relegated as they are to ever  
shrinking areas. Elephants as metaphor of the human race, and Africa  
as metaphor of a devastated world that must recover its lost harmony.

Beard grants no privilege to humans, for he believes that we, just  
like animals, must respect nature’s balance. He imagines for all of  
us the bitter fate of living in an environment rendered ever more  
inhospitable by myopic, uncontrolled development, where the quality  
of life progressively declines and must come to terms with the  
rebellion of an offended nature.

The only hope is beauty. Beard believes that the key to saving  
humankind lies in a constant quest for truth and beauty. Beard’s  
women are portrayed as generators of life, the source of all things,  
whose grace remains fully intact. They are depicted as creatures born  
of nature’s womb, heroic, full of strength, with decisive features  
and powerful movements; statues, symbols of nature’s creativity and  
ability to regenerate itself. “Only beauty can save the world” is the  
message of the new Pirelli Calendar, in the spirit of Fyodor Dostoevsky.

The seven models are: Daria Werbowy of Canada, Emanuela de Paula and  
Isabeli Fontana (who debuted in Demarchelier’s 2005 Calendar) from  
Brazil, Lara Stone and Rianne Ten Haken from Holland, Malgosia Bela  
of Poland and Italy’s own Mariacarla Boscono (who first appeared in  
the 2003 edition by Bruce Weber and again in Nick Knight’s 2004  
Calendar).

The final result is a calendar/diary that Peter Beard describes as “a  
living sculpture”. The 56 plates of the new Cal are a rich collage of  
images, quotations, observations by the artist on the environment,  
climate change and global warming, overpopulation and the depletion  
of natural resources. “My real concern”, says the photographer “is  
the destruction of nature on a global scale. We’ve totally lost track  
of what evolution is based on, and how important diversity is in  
nature. This concept is the very foundation of survival”.

Throughout the shooting and production of the Calendar, a number of  
measures were taken to minimize its environmental impact. In keeping  
with Peter Beard’s message, the Pirelli Calendar and the gala  
presentation of the 2009 edition will be Zero Impact®. Pirelli, in  
cooperation with a LifeGate initiative, will contribute to the  
creation and protection of a forested area in Costa Rica capable of  
absorbing the same quantity of CO2 emissions generated by the  
production and printing of the Calendar and by the presentation gala.  
Additionally, the Calendar will be printed on natural, lead-free paper.