Looker [Hardcover]

Richard Kern (Photographer), Geoff Nicholson (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2008

If the model is the exhibitionist, then I am the voyeur.—Richard Kern

Richard Kern is a post-modernist punk photographer who has worked in New York city rock music and “No Wave” art circles since the 1970s. In Looker, through a series of carefully constructed vignettes, Kern’s models proceed through their daily private lives, seemingly unaware of the camera. Or are they wittingly playing into the obvious cinematic intrigue? The balance of control present in each frame is a powerful and sensual statement.

Looker is thought-provoking in its gentle nature, pastoral tones, and caring reflection of private innocence—but it is also freshly and stunningly erotic, silently exuberant in its portrayal of intimacy and abandon. Richard Kern’s photographs are a peek into a world of mystery and eroticism.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Underground filmmaker, music video director and photographer Kern (Action) has built the latter half of his career on documenting a kind of hipster porn aesthetic, and this latest book, his tenth, continues that trend, with glossy full-color images of women caught, seemingly unawares, in various stages of undress. At their best, the pictures here are simple and effective, as much about the play of light, atmosphere and composition as about any forced notions of sexuality. At their worst, they are simply cheesy. One, an obvious homage to the iconic 70s image of a female tennis payer scratching her butt, comes off as less sexy than clumsy and stale. As might be expected in a book that purports to be created on the fly, there's an abundance of public nudity and crotch shots here-perhaps one of Kern's particular fetishes-and most of the images are in soft focus, as if taken with telephoto lens from behind bushes and across fields. Kern prefers his models natural and disheveled; readers might welcome the lack of make-up and artifice in his photographs-assuming that the essential artifice of reconstructed voyeurism doesn't turn them off, that is.
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About the Author

Richard Kern is a photographer, filmmaker, video director and portrait artist. His photographs have appeared in ArtForm, i-D, Purple, PDN, Flash Art, FHM, GQ, and Legshow. He lives in New York.

Geoff Nicholson has written fourteen novels, including The Food Chain, Footsucker and Bleeding London, which was shortlisted for the 1997 Whitbread Prize.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Abrams (June 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810995301
• ISBN-13: 978-0810995307
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #622,082 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not a Voyeur, August 22, 2008

By 

Timothy Haugh (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Looker (Hardcover)

There's a little bit of the voyeur in all of us. It seems like Richard Kern is in a good position to take advantage of this and provide an excellent collection of photographs. Unfortunately, this book is a bit of a disappointment.

Part of the disappointment comes from the simple fact that a professional photographer can't be a true voyeur; or, at least, he can't publish those photographs in a book. Geoff Nicholson hints at this a bit it his opening essay. However, Mr. Nicholson also sets up expectations in his essay about furtively trying to take photographs on the street that are not realized in the photos that follow.

That is not to say that there aren't some good photographs in this book. Early photos in a sequence, particularly the photos taken outdoors of a single subject are often quite compelling. They truly seem to capture a person unawares; however, as the sequences go on, and the models get into states of further undress, the pictures are obviously staged, which destroys the voyeuristic quality.

In some ways, Mr Kern is trying to capture something next to impossible to capture well. Still, he manages, occasionally, to capture more than I expected. If his focus would be on what he achieved in the earlier part of the photo sequences here, I think he would have been more successful.

5.0 out of 5 stars the one to buy!, October 3, 2011

By 

michael - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Looker (Hardcover)

If you are a fan of Richard Kern's work, especially some of the shoots he's done on the VBS.TV "Shot By Kern" online episodes then you will love this book. A lot of the work featured in this book is of that style, very subtle in its eroticism, very quietly captivating images. The introduction is a very well written short story of sorts about the "modern voyeur" that is very well written and entertaining on a level separate from the images themselves.
All in all if you buy one of Kern's books, I'd say to get this one.

5.0 out of 5 stars open it up... now you are the voyeur!, August 16, 2010

By 

el cranki (mexico) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Looker (Hardcover)

kern triumphs at this, when you are turning the pages, you are silently hidden on a corner outside the house of a girl you liked so much you started to follow. you are reeling your camera, waiting... SNAP, she is yours.