The Pirelli 2024 calendar celebrates its 50th edition with an ode to diversity and timelessness

A calendar, by definition, serves to measure the passage of time, but the one that Pirelli has launched for 2024 aims to break it. “This project does not have a great respect for time. It goes against it,” says Prince Gyasi, the 28-year-old visual artist from Ghana who has been chosen to shoot the 50th edition of the tire company’s iconic publication. He is the first African photographer, and one of the youngest ever, to be selected by Pirelli in the history of “the Cal.”

“I began to look beyond my own world, ignoring any ceilings or obstacles, looking directly at the sky. I saw artists and leaders. These people taught me not only to dream of a different lifestyle, but to make it a reality,” he said on November 29 in London, during the presentation of the calendar, which he has named Timeless.

The previous edition of the calendar featured models such as Bella Hadid, Cara Delevingne and Emily Ratajkowski. Now there is only one, Naomi Campbell, who at 53 is back for a fifth time. The rest are “artists and leaders.” This is the third time that the calendar exclusively features Black individuals, following Tim Walker’s edition in 2018, and Terence Donovan’s in 1987, which included a 16-year-old Campbell. This year, the shoot, spread between London and the artist’s native Ghana, has included a wide range of people, from the King of Ashanti (Ghana), Otumfo Osei Tutu II, to movie stars such as Idris Elba and Angela Bassett, as well as writers such as Margot Lee Shetterly and Amanda Gorman. “My environment is language, I am not very good in front of the cameras. But I tried to have the best time possible, let myself go and not think so much about how I looked, but about how powerful and brilliant I felt,” said Gorman, who at 25 became known around the world for the poem that she read aloud at the inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden in 2021. “Gyasi’s work is very poetic and in the end an image is worth a thousand words. His message is that we have to move forward, that we need to stay united as a community, and I think it is incredibly in line with my values,” she said.

Color is key in the Ghanaian artist‘s work. The pages of the 2024 calendar (he refuses to confess which is his favorite: “I can’t do that!”) are full of electric blues, powerful reddish tones and bright yellows. During the presentation in the British capital, everything was flooded with fuchsia pink, which contrasted with the lime suit that Angela Bassett wore for the occasion. For the actress, the fact that Pirelli has for the first time selected a Black photographer for the coveted calendar — which is not for sale, only an unspecified number of copies are distributed — is “extremely important.” “It brings a different and modern sensibility. It’s a breath of fresh air. And yes, it is important that some things remain constant,” she said, alluding to the idea of immutability around which this edition revolves. The portrait of the actress is called Altruista and conveys the powerful image of the performer holding a huge key in front of a golden gate. “My character has this key that opens the door to future generations. [Gyasi] told me that that is what I have done with my work, opening the doors through which others will enter. That is so beautiful. The impossible is not so, it can be possible if you see it done by others. And what was a flash, a dim light, is getting bigger and brighter,” says the winner of two Golden Globes for her roles in What’s Love Got to Do With It and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Also enjoying their own month on the calendar are the Nigerian singer-songwriter and actress Tiwa Savage, the American singer and actress Teyana Taylor, the Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo, the former French footballer of Ghanaian origin Marcel Desailly and the British singer-songwriter, music producer and filmmaker Jeymes Samuel. The latter, brother of singer Seal, acknowledges that the first time he learned about the calendar — which until 2016 was mainly known for its images of half-naked models rather than for trying to send any message — was in 2003, when his then sister-in-law Heidi Klum starred in one of the pictures. “They’ve gone from Klum to me, this can only get better,” he jokes. He, like Gyasi, is a strong advocate that each person has a color or, at least, a shade. His, he says, is electric blue. It’s something you feel far beyond the color of your skin. “The world is a super colorful place, but human beings dampen all its beauty. We desaturate all colors all the time, limit them to black and white, and make everything mundane and boring. That’s not how the world is. For me, the Pirelli 2024 calendar is an accurate description of planet Earth, full of color,” he says.

Prince Gyasi is the latest of 39 artists to have created a Pirelli calendar in its 60-year history. Before him, renowned photographers such as Annie Leibovitz, Peter Lindbergh, Steven Meisel, Steve McCurry and Richard Avedon stood behind the camera. To commemorate its origins, the almanac has celebrated its 50th edition in London — it was not published from 1975 to 1983 due to the oil crisis and in 2021 due to the pandemic — since the British photographer Robert Freeman, famous for his portraits of The Beatles, was the first to receive the order from the Italian tire company to carry out this project. “In Gyasi’s view there is a lot of color, tradition and timelessness. Beauty and values are timeless and diversity is one of ours,” said Marco Tronchetti, executive director of the company.

On one of the days of the photo shoot, Gyasi himself was the living example of this color range, with pink bows and multicolored nails. On the day he officially presented the final result, however, he was dressed completely in black, and with natural nails. “At this moment I am in a different color mode, but the weather also plays a role,” he admitted to this newspaper. Gyasi has synesthesia, a condition that only affects between 2% and 4% of the population and which involves linking perceptions of the senses, such as smells or sounds, with a particular color. London is a cold place for those who, despite their growing success, still work and live in Accra. “But my future is super bright,” he said.

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