Urs Stahel

Photography is present in all the pubic and private areas of our lives. It is also found in seclusion, where it is dark, where we shut ourselves off from society or where an act excludes society. Sexuality as eroticism, desire, fantasy and fetish is one of the central drives of mans thoughts, actions and feelings. Frequently though, sexuality is minimized, considered to be nothing more than lustful entertainment or dismal deviation. Body Pleasure / Body Pain shows photography as an important medium in the presentation of sexuality. Photography stylizes lust and passion, power, violence and voyeurism. Wish and desire enter into a pact with sexuality: sexual fantasies push to be presented, seek exposure and photography, with its own voyeuristic pull, uses the power of (photo) eroticism for its own purposes. Body Pleasure/Body Pain presents this photography and discusses it in numerous essays. Volume 2 will be published in 2009. It is devoted to the photography of violence and disesase, those other central powers that can influence body and soul.

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