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Roy Stuart #1
Roy Stuart, Vol. 1
A BOOK OF EROTIC POWER RARELY SEEN. ""ANIMAL SEXUALITY DIFFERS FROM EROTICISM IN THAT HUMAN SEXUALITY IS LIMITED BY TABOOS AND THE DOMAIN OF EROTICISM IS THAT OF THE TRANSGRESSION OF THESE TABOOS"" IS HOW GEORGES BATAILLE EXPLAINS EROTICISM. CASTING A NEW LIGHT ON THAT MOST HUMAN OF ACTS, ROY STUART PRESENTS US HERE WITH A BOOK OF EROTIC POWER RARELY SEEN. THE BRILLIANT TECHNIQUE AND SKILLFULL PRESENTATION OF HIS VIDEOS AND STILLS PRESENT SEXUALITY DIRECTLY AND WITHOUT PRUDERY. THEY HAVE EARNED THIS PARIS BASED AMERICAN A REPUTATION AS A GRANDMASTER OF THE EROTIC CAMERA. HIS PHOTOS AND GLIMPSE VIDEOS HAVE ACQUIRED CULT STATUS EVEN AMONGST EXPERIENCED HARDCORE FANS, AND WITH GOOD REASON, FOR THEY REPRESENT AN EXQUISITE REPRESENTATION OF THE FORBIDDEN. IN TURNS VOYEURISTIC, IN TURNS NARRATIVE, HIS PICTURES WITH THEIR DISARMING EXPLICITNESS SUBVERT TRADITIONAL MORAL CODES AND FORCE THE VIEWER TO REEVALUATE HIS OR HER PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS OF SEXUALITY. THE PHOTOGRAPHS ASSEMBLED IN THIS BOOK, WHICH IN ANOTHER CONTEXT MIGHT HAVE BEEN CONDEMNED, INSTEAD GIVE A FASCINATING GLIMPSE BEHIND THE SCENES OF ROY STUART'S MAGICAL THEATRE OF TRANSGRESSION AND TABOO.
200 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 4, 2016
Roy Stuart's photography is characterised by a weird mix of old-fashioned photostories, pseudo-candid street upskirts, BDSM-inflected narratives, and huge 1970s bushes (to the extent that Hannah says things like, ‘I'm going for a wax tomorrow, it's all getting a bit Roy Stuart down there’). He's based in Paris, and originally worked for an American magazine called Leg Show, which I've never seen but I imagine is not something you read for the articles. Its editor, Dian Hanson, thought he was better than his medium; she was the one who brought him to Taschen, who have now published five volumes of his arty retro porn.
His style is notable mostly for his focus on mood; even his single shots usually seem to be telling a story, and there are a lot of sequential photostrips which allow him to take some ludicrous set-up as a way of developing tension. This is why power-play is such a heavy feature of his work. At the same time, many of these ‘stories’ have a deliberate, end-of-the-pier cheesiness to them and hence often contrive to seem oddly charming.
Adding to the charm is a pleasingly different body aesthetic in Stuart's work – people are messy and real-looking, unglamorous, and a range of sizes, including several sequences with plus-sized models which recall the work of Jan Saudek. This tendency bumps up against a streak of pure glamour photography in his instincts and leads to some interesting juxtapositions. And balancing our photographer's male gaze is his genuine interest in the contradictions and nuances of female sexuality, which is the focus of all his work.
Like most erotic photography, it suffers from the fact that you if you don't click with the mood of a shot, then there's little else to enjoy there. But his interest in tone and erotic current, rather than just silly outfits and poses, puts him in my opinion well above the rest of Taschen's army of highbrow fetish photographers, and if you pick him up in the right mood he can be super hot.
His style is notable mostly for his focus on mood; even his single shots usually seem to be telling a story, and there are a lot of sequential photostrips which allow him to take some ludicrous set-up as a way of developing tension. This is why power-play is such a heavy feature of his work. At the same time, many of these ‘stories’ have a deliberate, end-of-the-pier cheesiness to them and hence often contrive to seem oddly charming.
Adding to the charm is a pleasingly different body aesthetic in Stuart's work – people are messy and real-looking, unglamorous, and a range of sizes, including several sequences with plus-sized models which recall the work of Jan Saudek. This tendency bumps up against a streak of pure glamour photography in his instincts and leads to some interesting juxtapositions. And balancing our photographer's male gaze is his genuine interest in the contradictions and nuances of female sexuality, which is the focus of all his work.
Like most erotic photography, it suffers from the fact that you if you don't click with the mood of a shot, then there's little else to enjoy there. But his interest in tone and erotic current, rather than just silly outfits and poses, puts him in my opinion well above the rest of Taschen's army of highbrow fetish photographers, and if you pick him up in the right mood he can be super hot.
December 31, 2012
Surprisingly old fashioned.
March 22, 2013
"That's hot"
December 1, 2024
Outside any philosophical talkings you'll find inside young women in all kind of provocative poses, exposed tits, bare butts, more or less spectacular dresses, some reference to horror (e.g. initiation), unshaven vaginas, some hardly disguised screwing... well, the author has done a good job and I really enjoyed looking at his artwork. Really recommended!
August 13, 2015
I love it. So glad I bought it.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews