Edited by Robert Violette. Introduction by Charlotte Cotton. Preface by Gregory Crewdson. Text by James Ellroy, Neville Wakefield, A.M. Homes, James Frey, Bruce Wagner. Interview with Philip-Lorca diCorcia.
A seminal experience for American photographer Malerie Marder (born 1971) was a family friend's request for Marder to photograph her with her lover, naked and in the anonymous setting of a motel room. This set the tone for Marder's work for the next decade. Her photographs of nudes are composed simply, much like portrait painting, her subjects sitting plainly near the center of the frame, often set against the bleak anonymity of motel rooms, their impassive gazes almost daring the viewer to interpret their bodies. "Marder has explored the psychosexual undertow of her own intimate relationships," Siobhan McDevitt wrote in Artforum, "frequently shooting herself along with family and friends in close quarters (including pay-by-the-hour motels) and, usually, undressed. She flirts with prurience, with ideas of privacy and surveillance, eroticism and pornography, but seems more satisfied when approaching the complications of love or being in love." Beautifully illustrated, Carnal Knowledge contains 77 color reproductions of these photographs, as well as new texts from James Ellroy and Neville Wakefield, a preface by Gregory Crewdson, short stories inspired by Marder's work by A. M. Homes, James Frey and Bruce Wagner, and a Q & A for Marder devised by Philip-Lorca diCorcia. It is the first volume to collect these works and to bring Marder's work to a wider audience.
Featured image is reproduced from Malerie Marder: Carnal Knowledge
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Photography Magazine
Vince Aletti
Intimacy can be bruising, but Marder’s subjects seem determined to risk it, even if their only connection is to the woman with the camera. As for the photographer, she’s happy for her work to remain enigmatic—“not an answer, but a clue.”
Wallpaper.com
Hanrietta Thompson
"Simplicity is often regarded as the ultimate sophistication, and by this definition alone Malerie Marder's beautiful compositions are unbelievably compelling."
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FROM THE BOOK
"These magical pictures enduringly refuse to be at the service of either the conventions for packaging contemporary art photography into digestible chunks for gallery walls, or the reinforcement of the idea that an artist’s most successful work always performs to type. ... It is through the contingent meanings created by Carnal Knowledge that we can experience, perhaps for the first time, the deep, fragile, and original nature of Malerie Marder’s photography."
"Malerie Marder… looks back on her career in Carnal Knowledge (Violette), a survey of work made between 1996 and 2007 that includes texts by James Ellroy, A.M. Homes, Bruce Wagner, James Frey, and Gregory Crewdson and Philip-Lorca diCorcia, both of whom Marder studied with at Yale. Since there is also a straightforward introductory essay by Charlotte Cotton, this is a bit more verbiage than Marder’s oeuvre can comfortably support, but the variety of responses are some indication of the work’s ability to provoke and bemuse. What Cotton describes as a “heady alchemy of exhibitionism and voyeurism” has informed the photographs from the beginning, not just because her subjects are almost always nude, but because they include her parents, her sister, her boyfriends, and herself. With few exceptions, the settings are domestic interiors or motel rooms, neither of which provides any sense of comfort or solidity. So it’s not surprising that Marder’s sitters sometimes appear ill at ease and out of place. But this awkwardness is often touching and endearing. Intimacy can be bruising, but Marder’s subjects seem determined to risk it, even if their only connection is to the woman with the camera. As for the photographer, she’s happy for her work to remain enigmatic—“not an answer, but a clue."
In today's Daily Beast, Lisa Larson-Walker and Melissa Leon select "Incredible Photos from 11 Women Artists", including this one by Malerie Marder. They write, "Though Malerie Marder frequently appears within her own work, this photograph (taken in 2007 and called “Past Present,” included in a 2011 monograph titled Carnal Knowledge, published by Violette Editions) is a portrait of an actress recreating the severe bruising Marder suffered after a fall. 'I used to have anxiety about my pictures exposing things too private,' Marder wrote in an email conversation with Philip-Lorca diCorcia. 'But the real intimacies are censored out. I still get pangs of self-consciousness, but it’s too late for regret.' Ambiguity, fate, eroticism, nostalgia, awkwardness, narcissism, transiency: these are just some of the emotions Marder felt as she took the photos in Carnal Knowledge. continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 12 x 8.5 in. / 144 pgs / 77 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $75.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $99 ISBN: 9781900828307 PUBLISHER: Violette Editions AVAILABLE: 8/31/2011 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by Violette Editions. Edited by Robert Violette. Introduction by Charlotte Cotton. Preface by Gregory Crewdson. Text by James Ellroy, Neville Wakefield, A.M. Homes, James Frey, Bruce Wagner. Interview with Philip-Lorca diCorcia.
A seminal experience for American photographer Malerie Marder (born 1971) was a family friend's request for Marder to photograph her with her lover, naked and in the anonymous setting of a motel room. This set the tone for Marder's work for the next decade. Her photographs of nudes are composed simply, much like portrait painting, her subjects sitting plainly near the center of the frame, often set against the bleak anonymity of motel rooms, their impassive gazes almost daring the viewer to interpret their bodies. "Marder has explored the psychosexual undertow of her own intimate relationships," Siobhan McDevitt wrote in Artforum, "frequently shooting herself along with family and friends in close quarters (including pay-by-the-hour motels) and, usually, undressed. She flirts with prurience, with ideas of privacy and surveillance, eroticism and pornography, but seems more satisfied when approaching the complications of love or being in love." Beautifully illustrated, Carnal Knowledge contains 77 color reproductions of these photographs, as well as new texts from James Ellroy and Neville Wakefield, a preface by Gregory Crewdson, short stories inspired by Marder's work by A. M. Homes, James Frey and Bruce Wagner, and a Q & A for Marder devised by Philip-Lorca diCorcia. It is the first volume to collect these works and to bring Marder's work to a wider audience.
