Action by Richard Kern.
Published by Taschen. ISBN-10: 3822856495
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Photographer and film maker Richard Kern was born in North Carolina in 1954. He acquired an understanding of photography by accompanying his father, who was both editor and photographer for a local newspaper, on news assignments. After graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1977 he moved to New York City where he fell in with the underground arts scene that also included the likes of David Wojanarowicz, Lydia Lunch, Nick Zedd and Lung Leg. In 1985, as part of 'The Cinema of Transgression' movement, he started to make a name with his low budget films, such as 'Manhattan Loves Suicides', that showed the seedy, drug fuelled counter culture of Reagan's America. In 1986, working with Lydia Lunch and based upon her sexual fantasies, he made the infamous 'Fingered'. Along the way - Kern has found time to published several photographic monograms and produce music videos for Sonic Youth and Marilyn Manson.
It could be argued that Kern's style of photography is a continuation of themes inherent within the cinema of transgression. He tends not to favour the conventional photographic studio - finding that sterile - his 'studio' is his own New York Apartment. Here his models often pose in the kitchen, bathroom, lounge, backyard and bedroom where they can be caught, via Kern's camera, using action-men dolls as dildos, chewing on a packet of birth control pills, urinating, smoking cigarettes held between toes or taking off tights - tights, stockings and feet play a large part within the mise en scène of Kern's images.
His images have found homes within the pages of magazines, such as Hustler, and art galleries around the world, such as London's prestigious ICA. People react to Kern's images in the same way that they react to Marmite - one either loves them or hates them. They continue to divide and polarise opinion - James Gardner of The New York Post has said that "There's a moral element to Kern's work," whereas Sarah Kent, in Time Out London, hated the work, exhibited in London's ICA, to the point where she asked of her readers "Why is the ICA showing this nasty rubbish? Should this man be walking free?"
This coffee table 280 page monograph is published in hardback and has been edited by Dian Hanson. It opens with a single page introduction, entitled 'Detention', by Richard Prince. Other than that there is no further text - have Taschen taken note of my preference for letting the photographs speak for themselves without the burden of pretentious essays trying to speak for them? Doubtful - but it is a welcome change and Hanson and Taschen should both be applauded for resisting the temptation.
The photographs are, with but a few exceptions, displayed one per page and printed to the same high standard that one has come to expect from Taschen.
In way of a bonus - 'Action' comes with an hour long DVD. Entitled 'Extra Action' this comprises of film made by Kern that has a specially written score by Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. The film is a series of photoshoots, set to experimental music, and split into 7 chapters - BBB, Insert, Legs, Misc, Rub, Wet and YG. Also included on the DVD is an extract from a black and white experimental short film entitled 'Hardcore'. As stated above - as with Marmite one either loves or loathes Kern's work. I happen to love Marmite. Try it for yourself and make up your own mind.
Review by Christopher John Ball
**** Rating
*Review Star Ratings If you have a photography related book you would like reviewing, including self-published material, email details to chris@cjballphotography.co.uk and I will happily consider doing so. The review will be hosted, free of charge, on this website and posted via Twitter and Facebook. All I ask in return is that a link be placed on your own site to the review on this website and, if used in any promotional material , I am credited as Christopher John Ball.
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