Subscription Series #7 by Carmen Winant, Juergen Teller, Mona Kuhn, Paul Kooiker

This is the seventh installment of the Subscription Series published by TBW BOOKS, an independent publisher based in Oakland, USA. This issue features four collections of works by American photographer Carmen Winant, German photographer Juergen Teller, Brazilian photographer Mona Kuhn, and Dutch artist Paul Kooiker.

This latest issue in the series is produced with the concept that each work is an independent collection of works, yet at the same time a single work of art, and each artist tackles the theme of the human form.

Carmen Winan: Body Index
The series was born from Winan's experience of modeling nude for a drawing class about ten years ago. Seeing herself being looked at from every angle, Winan was moved by the way the female body was exposed to the gaze and transformed into art, and began to make collages of images of posing women. Through images made as references for artistic anatomy for artists, Winan explored how the female body was used under the gaze of the camera. To interpret these images in a context, Winan seeks out and presents evidence of hidden resistance in the posing bodies. The subjects, meaningless and used as educational tools, appear poised and dominant, or somehow aberrant. Winan overlays them with images of various bodies, including a secessionist lesbian and a massage therapist, creating a painting that entangles meanings of feminine power and stillness. Originally, these were part of a modular work consisting of several panels with hundreds of images, but here only the selected sections, each with a single image overlaid on a single figure, are shown.

The Nipple by Jurgen Teller
The first thing that catches your eye in this book is the cover, which features a nude subject wearing a mask. This image, taken before the coronavirus pandemic, celebrates the human form while at the same time alluding to the fragility of our bodies, which will inevitably disappear from this world. Teller refers to the body through images of unused exercise equipment left abandoned on the streets of deserted European cities, photographed in an ironically casual style. Personal elements are sometimes inserted into the recurring images, such as the image of himself undergoing an endoscopy, which may be a routine checkup, but also suggests a serious illness. After the cut-out image of the human body, there are images that remind us of death, such as a dinosaur costume discarded on the floor, a frog's corpse with its innards exposed after being run over by a car, and a fish that has been dead for days. By contrasting images of fragility, which are empty of people, with images full of physical vitality, Teller vividly foreshadows the loneliness and tension that had not yet arrived when this work was printed.

Mona Kuhn: Study
In this work, Kuhn returns to the invisible image that first inspired him to pursue photography. Inspired by the Surrealist photographers of the 1920s, Kuhn explored the otherworldly imagery that can be achieved through exposure to light. The process, which was reportedly discovered by Lee Miller while developing Man Ray's photographs, but which Man Ray himself eventually named after himself, produces a unique visual effect, as if an alchemist had outlined the subject. The technique is as complex and uncertain as a person, so it would be impossible to recreate the same image using modern materials in the same way as the old methods. Like the people in his images, Kuhn tried to find his own balance, resulting in a unique image of overlapping layers of shining silver, created by the magical action of oxidation. This experiment in rendering the invisible image reflects the Kafkaesque presence of his subjects. From fragile yet inquisitive egos to confident poses addressing an invisible audience, from perfectly controlled to incomprehensible contours, Kuhn's photographs hover on the edge of the real and the surreal, highlighting nuances of the absurd.

Paul Kooiker, "Business of Fashion"
Kooiker created this work in 2018 when he was invited by fashion designer Michèle Lamy to perform an art performance at the invitation-only event Voices, organized annually by the Business of Fashion (BOF). This event brings together the world's leading fashion creators, connecting innovators and entrepreneurs and having a major impact on popular culture. Kooiker was asked by Lamy to photograph each guest. The photographer made them all stand in the same pose, with their arms slightly spread, and homogenized them by photographing only their necks below. The subjects, set against a plain monochrome background, are familiar to everyone, but when this happens, it's almost impossible to tell who is who. Their headless mannequin-like figures are reminiscent of window displays, mail-order catalogs, and online shops that lead the fashion industry. The photographs, which exude a sense of voyeurism and wry humor, reveal that the people who create cutting-edge fashion are actually wearing quite ordinary clothes.

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Title: Subscription Series #7
Artist: Carmen Winant, Juergen Teller, Mona Kuhn, Paul Kooiker
TBW Books, 2020
Hardcover, 4 books in a set
222 x 279 mm
¥18,000 + tax