Diaries of a Somatic Fetishist (1996)

As is often the case for me, the title and idea for this project came to me while I was reading a book. This time the book was Homosexuality and Male Bonding in Pre-Nazi Germany, edited by Harry Oosterhuis and Hubert Kennedy. The book contains several English translations of articles from an early gay German journal, Der Eigene. One of the translated articles was by Heinrich Pudor and it is titled, “Nudity in Art and Life.” Originally published in 1906, the article is an exposition on classical Greek attitudes towards the human form contrasting what Pudor idealizes in ancient Greek society with that of his early 20th century European culture. The following two sentences held the germ of this project:

We, by contrast, who cover the whole body with the exception of the head, are aroused by every part of the body as soon as it is uncovered, merely through that temporary unveiling, no matter whether that body part is beautiful or ugly, congenial to us or not. In this sense we are somatic fetishists.

Each photo shoot for this project followed the same process. The model was asked to undress before the camera and then pose for a portrait photo once they were nude. They could undress in whatever manner they preferred and pose for the portrait however they felt most comfortable. The sequence of undressing and posing was repeated three times during the course of the photo session.

The four images below provide an example of how images are grouped together when the work is exhibited, though this particular combination does not appear in the finished work. The first and second times the work was exhibited, it was presented in a four by four grid with four photographs matted and presented together in each of the 16 frames (64 photographs total) that comprise the complete installation.