Studio: Tirage limité

by François Avril

For years, Tom Bianchi thought certain of his photographic studies of male nudes were unpublishable, too frankly erotic. Then a mentor explained to him that "the better pictures were the ones which took the viewer behind closed doors." For In the Studio, Bianchi frees himself from all restraints, reveling in male bodies galore. (If artwork that contains even the suggestion of sexuality offends you, consider yourself warned.) Quite a few of the photographs play with the idea of images and representation, as Bianchi poses his models in front of life-size drawings and mirrors, and even makes the occasional appearance in the mirror himself, a camera held tightly to his eye. In Richard/Bound, Bianchi reenacts the Prometheus myth, substituting a gradually ripped jockstrap for the eating of the liver, bringing the series of photos--and the model--to a provocative climax. "Authority is inevitably impotent to suppress the beauty I see," Bianchi exults. In the Studio certainly puts paid to that assessment.

83 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998