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Artist Finds Sense of Empowerment in Nudity
(Korea Times Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)By Park Chung-a
Cara Judea Alhadeff is an American artist who photographs nudes in various surroundings: interior or exterior, natural or architectural. Also, by blurring contours of subjects and arranging them either intentionally or impromptu, she captures tension between the natural and synthetic, the familiar and unfamiliar as well as clash and harmony between space and human bodies.
The 35-year-old artist who is considered one of America's prime emerging artists in surrealist and erotic photography, is holding her first solo exhibition in Gallery Ssamzie in Seoul.
``Clothes just have so much personality. By taking them off, I wanted to find strength in the human body's vulnerability and sense of empowerment of being raw,'' Alhadeff told The Korea Times.
One section of the exhibition is composed of surreal and poetic self-portraits and photographs featuring her acquaintances, close friends and family including her pregnant Korean step-mother who posed in her house or neighborhood.
The other section are works from ``The Gestation Project,'' featuring 15 nude pregnant women posed in public places such as hair salons, zoos, bookstores, empty auditoriums and bars in San Francisco.
According to Alhadeff, the woman's pregnant body is the ideal subversive human challenge to cultural norms in our society because her ``womanness'' is utterly present.
``Her private is undeniably public. Her body is raw and exposed and contained at the same time. Life within her is clearly visible from the outside. Because her corporeality cannot be concealed, the pregnant woman is exempt from societal constraints that inhibit body awareness,'' she said. ``Her body plays with the illusory distinctions between them and us, the familiar and the unfamiliar, what is supposedly comfortable and what puts us on edge. The pregnant woman is both mythic and as real as it gets''
She said those who posed for her photographs were first hesitant about being models but later said it was a unique experience that gently pushed them outside their comfort zones and opened a door to nonconformity and free expression.
In the early 90s, Alhadeff's works were censored in the United States when she tried to exhibit her works in public places.
``I was surprised to find out that people sometimes get more threatened by their own imagination than a reality, ''she said.
The artist has been producing collaborative works with various artists such as poets, sculptors, dancers, musicians and architects.
Alhadeff is also a professional yoga teacher. She began practicing Yoga when she was 11 to help ``reduce stress''. In her two-weeks in Seoul in April, she not only came to hold her first solo exhibition but also teach Yoga at Pure Yoga, a Yoga institute in southern Seoul. She is also looking forward to do a collaborative artwork with renowned Korean artist Kim A-ta. [ZZ]
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