Book Description
One of the most transgressive of American photographers, Richard Kern makes brazen portraits of enticing nude women. But if his photographs easily cross over into the world of pornography, they are distinguished from prosaic porn by their beauty and, more importantly, their treatment of voyeurism as a theme. As Kern once said, "The best part of anything is watching," and through his photographs, he not only seduces the viewer into looking but forces a subsequent recognition of his or her own voyeurism. This publication presents a new series of black and white photographs.
Essays by Geoff Nicholson and Sabina Spada.
Paperback, 180 pages, 150 b&w images.
About the author
Born in 1954 in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, the turning point of Richard Kern's life happened one afternoon in 1971, when he was picked up by a carload of hot, young, scantily-clad New York City glam girls while hitchiking after a day of skipping high school. He was captivated. The end result has been more than two decades of hard, sexually blunt work, starting with early projects like the Cinema of Transgression films made in collaboration with a crew of Lower East Side denizens Lydia Lunch, Nick Zedd, Sonic Youth, and Karen Finley. Kern's recent work has concentrated on the photography of women, and has appeared in Hustler and Barely Legal, as well as in the art monographs New York Girls and XX Girls.
