Nude bodies painted white, faces turned away from the viewer: this is how Nadav Kander (*1961 in Israel) photographed the sitters in his latest series. Accessories are minimal, as is the aesthetic, yet at the same time the arrangement makes the mostly voluptuous bodies seem baroque. One is reminded of the portraits of Elizabeth I with their white lead “masks.” In Kander’s precisely lit images, with their exquisite colors, white mice run across white skin, a small bird seems tiny perched next to an odalisque. Red hair plays a role, flowing down over doll-like bodies as if it had a life of its own. Despite the abundance of flesh on display, the images do not have a superficial sense of the erotic. The two works selected for our Edition Hatje Cantz—male and female nudes—feature the bodies huddled in reclining poses. Here, too, the faces are hidden from the viewer, and this withdrawal of the self awakens curiosity in the viewer.
