PHOTOGRAPHER RESEARCH
NADAV KANDER
6 BODIES. 6 WOMEN, 1 MAN.
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| Michael Flux, 2010 Contact Sheet |
BIO
'Revealed yet concealed. Shameless yet shameful. Ease
with unease. Beauty and destruction. These paradoxes are displayed in all my
work; an inquiry into what it feels like to be human.' (Nadav Kander, 2019).
'Coated in white marble dust and set against the void of
the photographer’s studio, the subjects of Nadav Kander’s BODIES. 6 Women, 1
Man serve as monumental studies of the human condition.
Far from the airbrushed perfection that permeates images
of nudity in popular culture, Nadav Kander presents us with honest photographs
of the human form. The ‘bodies’ featured reference the forms of the classical
and renaissance past, whilst modernising the genre of the nude to act as a tool
for philosophical investigation. Faces turned from the viewer, but bodies
offered completely, the forms invite the meditation and self-reflection
customarily associated with religious iconography and tomb sculpture.' (nadavkander.com, 2019).
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| Audrey with Toes and Wrist Bent, 2011 |
I admire Kander's work enormously. Whilst researching around my general theme of gender representations of women in photography and art, I assumed a female figure would be presented in some way as sexualised, edited and made more than it is, reminiscent of some 'airbrushed perfection' that has infected commercial photography in Kander's words.
He has managed to produce nude photographs that allow the beauty and imperfections of the human form to exist simultaneously - isn't it that which makes us imperfect what makes us beautiful?
Kander's photographs are evident of his direction in the placement of the body posture, which are placed awkwardly, contorted, twisted or bowed reverently, not sprawled or enhanced erotically for sexualized gaze. In the above image, Audrey with Toes and Wrist Bent, 2011, the subject is reclined with her toes and fingers curled
uncomfortably from her limbs. Flaws are laid bare in Kander's work - the figure is exposed and vulnerable
to our gaze. It is this sense of vulnerability, and of humanity stripped of its
defences that Kander investigates as a point of beauty.
This is a contrasting notion to that of other theory I have investigated (Mulvey, 1977; Berger, 1972) and mainstream commercial photography of women, which, as mentioned previously, has been routinely over-sexualised and falsely beautified for reasons above female benefit.
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| Audrey lying away on black lace, 2011 |
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| Isley lying with mouse on hip, 2012 |
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| Stella on elbows (relaxed), 2012 |
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| Michael curled away, 2012 |
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| Michael curled with soft hand, 2012 |
I particularly admire Kander's use of a male nude figure, not presented as a hegemonic masculine man, prized for exaggerated and defined muscles, but simply as a beautiful, imperfect, vulnerable human being.
However, perhaps the imbalance of gender in his subject focus can be noted here - why not explore equal numbers of male and female bodies in this way? Only 1 man is used in this nude series against 6 women, perhaps reflective of traditional paintings and art, much like the style of his Elizabethan white washing of the skin.
I aim to use the influence of Kander's approach to presenting human's in their most simple, vulnerable selves, without the imposition of sexual gaze, in my own work, where I will aim to portray a female subject transgressing the imposition of male sexual gaze.
Nadav Kander (2013) Bodies. 6 women, 1 man. Available at: https://www.nadavkander.com/exhibitions/bodies-6-women-1-man (Accessed 30 April 2019).
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