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The Other Place.
Photographs by Jeff Burton. Text by Bruce Hainley.
Twin Palms Publishers,
Santa Fe,
2005.
146 pp.,
89 four-color plates,
14x12".
This fantastic volume presents the most comprehensive collection of Jeff Burton's sexy, tantalizing photographs to date. Presented in a fresh oversized format, the book showcases Burton's important contribution to the history of the nude in a visceral tour de force. Building on his earlier images that observe how background décor play witness to the action on pornographic sets where he works as a still photographer, Burton brings us more of his oblique narrative style with many new images. His mastery of selective focus—sometimes on the fern in the foreground, sometimes on a hand, at other times on the couple going at it in the corner—actively engages viewers in the narrative of desire; with each photograph, they must orient themselves in the familiar domestic environment and make incongruent connections only hinted at in the frame. Burton's hardcore porn color palate and his astonishing skill for cropping in a way that doesn't reveal too much makes for an extremely enjoyably read, both viscerally and intellectually. He crops just enough of the action outside of the frame to force the viewer into imagining the rest, relying on our natural voyeuristic tendencies to fill in the plot. The hands of the mirrored clock are in focus as the male sex actors bend over in the blurred reflection. Pairs of feet on the shag carpeting allude to what is happening above. A man's hand, in sharp focus, grips the side of the couch as a faint reflection in the window shows a figure looking downward. Burton's photographs not only document the sex industry, but also explore our notions of sexuality and commodification. His photographs set up uncanny relationships between people and their surroundings, and his playful juxtapositions blur the traditional boundaries of real action and acting, work and pleasure, fact and fiction, documentary and fine art photography.
Read Publisher's Description.
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