REVIEW: Body to Body

London-based vintage photography dealer ORDINARY-LIGHT’s Body to Body: Dita Von Teese meets The Priapic Photographer previewed with an open reception on May 14th from 6-9 pm. The public viewing was held in conjunction with HotShoe Gallery’s Romanian Pavilion opening. Body to Body includes a selection of photographs of burlesque sensation Dita Von Teese by Chas Ray Krider displayed alongside the erotic photographic works of Frederic Fontenoy. Fontenoy’s autoerotic photographs explore surrealist motifs within the erotic genre. Krider’s images of Von Teese are vintage c-prints and many of the photographs are published in Krider’s book Motel Fetish. Fontenoy’s images included in Body to Body are available in an edition.

Included in ORDINARY-LIGHT’s display is one of Krider’s images of Von Teese standing in black stiletto heels atop a hotel nightstand, her black thigh-high stocking clad legs flanked by two lamps. With raised arms gently brushing back her raven hair, Von Teese demurely looks down past her black leather heels and toward the flower-printed bedspread. This image, which has sold at auction in recent months, is a mild flirtation compared to the more openly coquettish image in the rest of the series.

In another of Krider’s images of Von Teese, the voluptuous seductress is framed between two almost as equally curvaceous lamps. The shades of the bedside lights are symmetrically cocked toward Von Teese, illuminating her bare breasts and light blue corset, but keeping the burlesque starlet’s face in shadow. Von Teese is fastened snugly into a satin corset, her tiny waist emphasized with each descending clasp. Though her face is not directly lit by the brass table lamps, Von Teese’s features are visible. Von Teese’s lips are painted a deep crimson and her brows are slightly arched, her brown eyes maintaining full contact with the viewer. Von Teese is perched on a mahogany table, her satin-gloved hands resting lightly on the smooth finish with her legs crossed and dangling over the edge. Her feet are buckled tightly into sparkling silver platform heels, the thin straps encircling Von Teese’s slender ankles and mimicking the smooth shape of the body-hugging corset.

In one of Fontenoy’s bedroom scenes, the focus is selectively on the image plane of a large format camera that stands between the viewer and a woman lying on the bed. The body of the camera conceals the woman as she lays, legs open and inverted against the headrest. The scene reminds us of our place as voyeur, forcing us to look through a second lens and doubly framing the splayed legs of the subject as they are reflected on the glass surface of the view camera.


This project will be on display by ORDINARY-LIGHT Photography until 18 June 2010 at HotShoe Gallery and is available for viewing by appointment only.

Contact: +44 (0) 20 7831 7991 or mail@ordinary-light.com

http://www.ordinary-light.com