editor’s letter continued
(continued from page 4)
artists who engaged in orientalist conceptions of the female body, Canan questions
both the status of women in art and in the repressive Turkish society from which she hails.
Carefully crafting light and shadow, Ralph Gibson allows his nudes to gently float in his photographs: as
always, he creates a poetic and somewhat surreal presentation of the human form.
Taking us into a rarely seen world, Malerie Marder reveals the world of prostitution in the Netherlands.
Through a series of striking portraits and intimate group photos, Marder questions the nature of nakedness
and eroticism as well as our conception of the sex industry.
Philip-Lorca diCorcia continues his journey of eliciting the inert theatricality of the everyday and the
underground by creating striking images of erotic dancers. In so doing, he forces the viewer to reexamine
the performance of gender and nature of eroticism in the female form.
Using polaroids to capture his male nudes, Jeremy Kost creates portraits and collages that present the
male figure in both its strength and vulnerability. Kost’s interest in gay culture and urban subculture draws
our attention to ideas of male erotica and the ideology of gender.
In a similar vein, Stewart Shining also examines the male nude, however, his images are presented in a
more heightened style: his photographs are reminiscent of advertising and high fashion, drawing us to
re-examine the idealized male body and the ideas of masculinity contained therein.
Finally, we are featuring Siberian photographer Nikolay Bakharev who presents us with intimate portraits
of everyday Russian subjects. Presenting images of from the mundane to the erotic, Bakharev presents
us with a clandestine view of the human body in Russian society.
In this issue, the photographers we feature examine the human body in its purest essence: the nude.
In so doing, they confront us with cultural ideologies, poetic realizations and disturbing insights into the
human world. Ultimately they allow us to glimpse what is often most difficult to uncover: ourselves.
The summer is coming to a close, as is our sixth issue: Nude, Naked + More. As the fall approaches,
we hope you will be revitalized and refreshed - ready for our next issue: Energy.
Stewart Shining, “JR”, 2013