Kern, Richard

Richard Kern, Action

Simply sexy: Richard Kern's gloriously natural girls Richard Kern likes real women: unpretentious, unadorned, and definitely undressed. Those who love Kern know each book is an invitation to join him in his privileged world where natural young women share their most intimate moments. Richard has never lost his boyish curiosity with girls and their secrets, so instead of posing them in sterile sets he follows them through the house?or rather his New York apartment?from backyard to kitchen to bathroom to bedroom, capturing every sexy and embarrassing moment. Action is his most revealing book yet. For 280 pages we careen through the life of Kern, accompanied by dozens of energetic, fun-loving, clothes-dropping exhibitionists. ?Young women want to show the world they?re not like their man-hating women's lib mothers, ? a Kern model once told me, and these girls certainly get the point across. To further assist the young ladies in their rebellion, the book includes an hour-long DVD of original Kern film with an exclusive musical score by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. Way to stick it to the Mom, ladies! And thank you, Richard, you lucky dog. - Dian Hanson The artist: Richard Kern was born in North Carolina in 1954 and has lived and worked in New York City since 1979. In the ?80s, he produced a series of short films that now are recognized as the central works of the movement known as the Cinema of Transgression. In the ?90s he switched to still photography full time and occasionally directed music videos for bands including Sonic Youth and Marilyn Manson. Kern has published nine books and is a regular contributor to a variety of international publications.

Richard Kern: Digital Kern

Richard Kern is renowned for his underground films, and for his pithy remark "If the model is the exhibitionist then I am the voyeur." The New York Times has called his pornography-influenced images "uncommonly visceral instances of the so-called male gaze." Some folks just call them porn: his publication credits include the magazines Barely Legal, Finally Legal, Tight, Candy Girls and Juggs. Kern was born in North Carolina in 1954, and has lived and worked in New York City for some 30 years. In the 80s, he produced a series of short films since recognized as the central works of the movement that has come to be called the Cinema of Transgression. In the 90s he moved back to still photography while occasionally directing music videos for performers like Sonic Youth and Marilyn Manson. He has shown his work around the world at venues including the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the London Institute of Contemporary Art and New York's Feature, Inc. This is his tenth monograph, following titles including Kern Noir, New York Girls and Model Release. It is the first to focus exclusively on his digital work.

Soft

Richard Kern is smarter than the average pornographer. What other shutterbug for Penthouse and Juggs also makes videos for Sonic Youth and Marilyn Manson and exhibits his shots of naked friends in high-toned galleries? But these artfully artless photos mark a new breakthrough for Kern. Best known for very hard-edged pictures and films--his DVD retrospective is entitled The Hard Core Collection--he now shows us a far softer side, which turns out to be even more unsettlingly transgressive than his violent stuff. The Soft photos are like a collaboration between himself and his punky young subjects, flirtily flaunting themselves in various states of come-hither undress. It's an art that conceals art: his skill in lighting, framing and staging his scenes coyly hides behind an unretouched do-it-yourself look, making the steamy scenes resemble what might happen if the amateur goth exhibitionists of the Suicidegirls website had all gone to art school. The girls loll and puff bong smoke into the ripe O of each others' mouths, blankly display nosebleeds, "accidentally" flash their panties, mockingly parody archetypes from Cindy Sherman, soft-core porn, and notorious candid tabloid "gotcha" snaps of celebrities: Catherine Zeta-Jones pregnant and smoking, Uma Thurman caught topless emerging from the surf. They play their parts with gleeful aplomb, in a fun, smutty (but not too smutty) conversation with the photographer. Institute of Contemporary Art curator Matthew Higgs supplies Artforum-style insights in his scholarly essay, but this is one book most folks won't read for the articles. --Tim Appelo

Richard Kern: Model Release

There's something odd about Richard Kern's most recent photographs. They're so fresh.

These are not typical soft-porn photos of the look-at-me-so-young-and-sexy variety. From bondage to leather to latex to guns, Kern is known for incorporating all of the elements of fetish imagery into his photos. These days, though, his girls are less equipped. They also smile a lot.

Kern, long involved in the New York punk scene, has gained recognition not only for his photography but also for his underground short films of the 80s and 90s (in 1994 he also wrote and directed a video for the alternative rock group Marilyn Manson.)

This volume features Kern's recent work, a testament to the new phase in his photography. Saturated colors and bright atmospheric lighting accentuate his pretty-but-not-perfect young nude subjects. Still sticking with the "no airbrush" motto, Kern's unpretentious, honest photos draw the viewer in close; sometimes it almost feels like you're right there. Imperfections galore, these sophisticated snapshots show it like it really is. Fans of Kern's previous work will find this new direction refreshing.

New York Girls (Photo & Sexy Books)

Kern Noir: Photographs by Richard Kern

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.

Richard Kern

The spectacle of Richard Kern's legendary filmmaking and photography incites many reactions, but rarely is indifference among them. His imagery's characteristic blitzkrieg of subversive eroticism, porno kitsch, punk sensibility and aggressive femininity has won admirers of the so-called grunge aesthetic. This book has images of Kern's recent work, which stands at the intersection of fashion, sex, and politics. The critical text by Paparoni explores the relationship between some of Kern's subjects and famous images from pre-war art history.

Xxgirls