Richard Kern (Charta) (Paperback Book)

by Demetrio Paparoni

Richard Kern (b. Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, 1954) has lived in New York since 1979. He became famous for his underground films and for a series of photographs relating to juvenile delinquent culture, with female nudes as his primary subject matter. Kern's photographs, mostly imagined scenarios, construct a fantasy situation in which one tends to daydream about the subject's potential relationships with the outside world. "You could say that the model's an exhibitionist and I'm a voyeur," Kern has said. The subjects, including a nude housewife who irons in high heels with a look as naive as it is naughty, and women as objects of sexual bondage, explore worldly habits that attract people's attention. This volume brings together photographs from the past ten years that carry a decisive visual impact, many published here for the first time. The critical text explores the relationship between some of Kern's subjects and famous images from pre-war art history.