Tag: malerie marder

Malerie Marder – Untitled from Carnal Knowledge series (1998)

I’ve wanted to post this for at least a year–but have not be able to track down anything larger than a teeny-tiny thumbnail. (I have complicated feelings about Marder’s work; over all I lean toward the fan person end of the spectrum.

Now that I can post it… I just don’t have any thoughts on it. I mean I love the direct sunlight, the way it makes the skin shine. I love the way you could likely distinguish shadow detail to a degree that would allow you to distinguish individual strands of pubic hair around the edges of the bush–but things go dark and become solid away from the edges (almost like a vague nod to something not unlike modesty, in spite of the explicit nature of the image).

I love how the low angled light stains the boys cheeks with the shadow of his lashes. The way he’s meeting his partners eyes even if the viewer can’t see them. The gentleness with the way he’s touching her things with his fingertips.

Still: looking at this I have trouble feeling the usual resonate rush of vicarious anticipation that I usually do when I spend time with it. I know why I feel this way: my fortunes have shifted rather drastically over the last year. I’m definitely in a better place than I have been but I’m a long way from OK.

And honestly, as much as the feeling of this image has always been something that motivates hope for future physical intimacy with folks I care about–that is something that it’s becoming increasingly clear is not in the cards for me. So while I love this and want to share it with you and hope you can feel something towards it that I don’t seem to be able to muster any more.

Malerie Marder – Untitled from Carnal Knowledge series (1998)

When I first stumbled onto Marder’s work a little more than a year ago, I had mixed feelings about it.

As I’ve subsequently encountered the work and reengaged with it, my estimation has shifted dramatically. The work has grown and I’ve discovered nuance and sensitivities I had previously overlooked.

Yes, I would still very much like to see her make something that is simultaneously capital-A Art and pornography. However, I’m not much less inclined to believe that not making that sort of thing the focus of her work is any sort of detriment or side-step of intrinsic potential and more I suspect if she did make art porn it would immediately clarify a number of stubborn questions I have about how to approach such an endeavor.

Really though, what I’ve learned by spending more time with the work is there’s actually less in the work that relates to pornography or Art. As the title of the series from which these images emanate suggests, these are more documentations of sexual arousal. They are less concerned with any sort of fantasy or sensuality; all but completely disregard any pretense of eroticism and focus simply on the space between tension and distension in physical desire.

The images are about sex. But in being about sex they aren’t intentionally arousing or explicit, that’s merely a natural outcropping of their laser-like focus on presenting the material with honesty, immediacy and intensity of feeling.

Another way to put it might be like this: how do you describe the taste of coffee to someone who has never tasted it? It’s a trick question: you don’t/can’t. You pass them a mug and say here this is hot and strong, try it.

The corollary here is that in a similar fashion, you cannot explain to someone who hasn’t had sex with another person, what it’s like. You can say it’s different than masturbating; but as to how it’s different… yeah, good luck with that. Because there’s the way the sensation is fundamentally different.

To be crass: being so horny you need to get yourself off to alleviate the tension is not unlike hunger but desire to share a connection with someone is much closer to thirst.

I believe Marder’s work is seeking to address something of the mechanism of such thirst. And the extraordinariness of that cannot be overstated.

Source: maleriemarder.com

Malerie Marder – Untitled (1998-2000)

She explores the psychosexual undertow in close relationships by photographing herself and friends and family in the nude, often in seedy settings such as pay-by-the-hour motels.

Matilda Battersby on Marder’s Carnal Knowledge exhibition

If you only consider her ethos, Marder is exactly the sort of image maker you’d be right to think might motivate me to quit my job, sell all my possessions and become a disciple.

And as much as I love half her work, there’s a prevailing theme of contrite ars gratia artis–as if transgression (or perversity, in the best sense of that word) needs to necessarily be couched in the framework of fine art if it is to be worthy of contemplation.

Marder tends to be less careful in considerations for propriety when it comes to including herself in her work. There is certainly a nobility to that tact, but it does a disservice to her work. Although it’s not a conversation that seems to be percolating, anywhere with her work, I get the feeling Marder has more in common with vextape than Philip-Lorca diCorcia. (There’s zero value judgment in that statement; merely a reflection of the sad fact that our culture has seen fit to lavish praise on a fixation with sexuality that takes a more pathological, apersonal approach while banishing more experiential, personal work preoccupied with graphic depictions of sexuality to the realm of pornography.)

I guess what I am really trying to point to is that with only a few exceptions, the works that move me–and the above is absolutely fucking exquisite–is the work where there’s a greater concern for presenting the underlying truth with brutal, unblinking honesty.

I sort of not-so-secretly wish Marder would set out to make pornography, at least once in her career because I am certain the results would be nothing short of revolutionary.