Illuminata: Are You Curious? focuses on the concept of abandon, continuing artist's exploration of the alternative sexual world. ''The work is about losing oneself into a place beyond control,'' she says, ''giving over to something which is fierce, raw and primitive, in search of a transcendent state.''
Illuminata: Are You Curious?
The exhibition focuses on the concept of abandon, continuing
Barbara Nitke's exploration of the alternative sexual world. "The work is
about losing oneself into a place beyond control," she says, "giving over to
something which is fierce, raw and primitive, in search of a transcendent
state."
Acknowledged by critic A. D. Coleman as one of the most important
photographers currently exploring human sexuality, Nitke's work of the last
two decades also furthers the debate over what is a fit subject for high
art.
As publicly funded organizations continue the trend of retreating from
controversial subjects, mainstream public acceptance has risen. In a recent
issue of Time Magazine, John Cloud observed that "our astonishment at Robert
Mapplethorpe's photographs of leather and pain 20 years ago now seems
quaint..."
Nitke's monograph Kiss of Fire (Kehrer) was published in October 2003. She
is the current president of The Camera Club of New York (founded in 1884 by
Alfred Stieglitz) and is on the faculty of School of Visual Arts in New
York. Her work has been the subject of one-woman exhibitions in New York,
New Orleans, Baltimore, Provincetown and Portland, Maine.
She is also a co-plaintiff with the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom in
challenging John Ashcroft, Attorney General of the United States of America,
and the federal Communications Decency Act (CDA) which regulates obscenity
on the Internet. The case is expected to go to the U. S. Supreme Court.
An opening reception will be held on Thursday, November 11, 2004, 6 - 9:00pm
Gallery Hours: Tues - Sat, 11AM - 6PM
Admission is free.
Image:BARBARA NITKE / Three Men in a Tub
2000 Digital 'C' Print 20x24 ED:1/15
Art @ Large
The Film Center Building
630 Ninth Avenue
No. 707
New York NY