![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/RichardKern_9058.jpg\" "\\"Richard")
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The great misconception about Richard Kern, according to Richard Kern, is that \u201cI fuck the models. That it\u2019s some all-out sex shoot, some big wild sex life,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s not the case at all\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
The veteran New York photographer and filmmaker means the models featured in more recent work. Generally they\u2019re young, pretty, suburban and semi-naked, and photographed in the style of paparazzi \u201cupskirt\u201d shots \u2013\u00a0the kind more usually seen in tabloids rather than art galleries. The focus on their gussets and doe-eyed expressions may often get him labeled as a perv \u2013 the softcore voyeur to Terry Richard\u2019s hardcore exhibitionist \u2013 but, quite reasonably, Kern rejects the allegation: \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m any more of a dirty old man than anybody else.\u201d In any case, his earliest works were far more confrontational: grainy, Super 8 arty slasher flicks featuring death, brutality, sex and subversion of all kinds, such as his iconic \u201cFingered\u201d, were underground favourites in the early Eighties, and formed the backbone of what his collaborator Nick Zedd termed the Cinema Of Transgression (\u201cFingered\u201d and others feature in the new \u201cYou Killed Me First\u201d exhibition at the Kunst-Werke).<\/p>\n
Back then, Kern says, \u201cwe were lifting from 42 Street Movies \u2013 they call them grindhouse moves now. \u2018Cannibal Holocaust\u2019, \u2018Make Them Die Slowly\u2019, \u2018The Last House On The Left\u2019. People in the art world think they\u2019re above all this shit. The idea was to take the references, put it in an art context, and watch the art people go, \u2018oh my God!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Kern, now a laconic 57 years old, has relished the act of provocation throughout his working life. When, in his early twenties, one of his early films about the Lower East Side demimonde received a critical pasting (just as Nan Goldin\u2019s \u201cBallad Of Sexual Dependency\u201d was being exalted) his attitude crystallised into a simple, enduring imperative: \u201cfuck you.\u201d<\/p>\n
As transgression is co-opted into the art-historical canon, the development isn\u2019t without its ironies. \u201cIt\u2019s really funny,\u201d Kern says. \u201cNick Zedd said, yesterday\u2019s pornography is today\u2019s art. It\u2019s vindicating in a lot of ways.\u201d Then there\u2019s the fact that when \u201cFingered\u201d was originally slated for presentation at the 1986 Berlin Film Festival, Kern attracted violent accusations of misogyny. Advance word-of-mouth led to cancellations when the film went on tour in Germany. \u201cAnd now,\u201d Kern grins, \u201cpeople pay to come in and politely watch it.\u201d You\u2019re invited to do the same, middle-finger raised in sympathy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Text von Kevin Braddock<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The great misconception about Richard Kern, according to Richard Kern, is that \u201cI fuck the models. That it\u2019s some all-out sex shoot, some big wild sex life,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s not the case at all\u2026\u201d The veteran New York photographer and filmmaker means the models featured in more recent work. Generally they\u2019re young, pretty,…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10172],"tags":[10,237],"class_list":["post-3331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-berlin","category-film","tag-belaid-le-mharchi","tag-richard-kern"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"\n