UNDER MY SKIN @ FLOWERS GALLERY – NEW YORK – JUNE 20 – JULY 27

Under My Skin- Nudes in Contemporary Photography
Curated by Mona Ruhn

Flowers Gallery
529 West 20th Street
New York NY 10011

June 20 – July 27

Internationally-renowned artist, Mona Ruhn, curates Under My Skin – Nudes in Contemporary Photography, at Flowers Gallery June 20 – July 27.

Under My Skin investigates the contemporary sensibility surrounding the canon of the nude in fine art. Is the unclothed body still the desired body? How does the visual language of the nude fit into the Warholian conversation about “high” and “low” art? How is the body revealed in the 21st century ? This exhibition presents an anthropological survey of who we are and how we define, represent and see ourselves currently. With these works the body is revealed, re-interpreted and given innumerable shapes by the artists who are defining new ways of representing the nude through the medium of photography.

The work in this exhibition range from David Dawson’s photographs of Lucian Freud and his nude subjects taken in the painter’s atelier to Bill Sullivan’s nudes taken from his computer screen, from Jenny Saville’s nude self portraits by Glen Luchford to Shen Wei’s introspective self portraits, from Kim Joon’s body manipulations to Mariah Robertson’s darkroom manipulations, from Collier Schorr’s collages to Polly Borland’s irreverence, all works bring together complex cultural forces that link artist, viewer and subject to our contemporary moment.

For the past ten years Kuhn has been an independent scholar at the Getty Research Institute, focusing her studies on the body. Through her own work she has explored the nude as a residence of who we are, producing large-scale, dream-like works that evoke a sense of intimacy and sensuality, while being at once classical and contemporary. In curating Under My Skin, Kuhn brings together her research background with her active practice of photography. She is currently working on a series titled Private to be released with monograph by Steidl in the spring of 2014.