Top AIPAD Picks: Mona Kuhn at M+B Gallery

Flawless, organic, sensual, suspended, liquid, sinfully voyeuristic, intimate, tactile…

We already profiled M+B Gallery a couple years ago when the gallery’s founder Benjamin Trigano brought Matthew Brandt’s psychedelic lake photographs. This year the gallery is showing several new artists including a Brazilian-born photographer Mona Kuhn. The two images shown at AIPAD this weekend Maya and Fault both from 2012, carry the same sense of intimacy as many of her other works.

Here the narrative is complete with just two images – the “before and after”. Sheets, crumpled and soft resemble walked-on sand by the sea. Flesh tones and the soft diffused lighting bring the image forward and make us participants in whatever happened on them. Maya, the nude in the right photograph reminds us of one of Antonio Canova’s Three Graces albeit reclining. Together they complete one another. Both pictures are very affordable and should absolutely be bought and installed as a diptych.

Maya Kuhn, Maya 2012, Fault 2012

See Ira Bordo’s nudes

Mona Kuhn’s pictures about color, texture and light. The nudes (remember we talked about the difference between the nude and naked bodies), the primary figurative elements in the composition, are noticeable only after the eye notes and processes the visual properties of the image. And then the nude appears. Flawless, contoured and very present. The way Kuhn composes her images, creates a sense of continuity and fluidity between the viewer and the image. It’s almost as if the classic sculptures of antiquity, Pygmalion’s Galatea, if you will, suddenly imbued with life turned to look at us, as we looked at them through the millennia. It’s their turn.

From the artist’s bio: “Mona Kuhn is best known for her large-scale, dream-like photographs of nudes. Her work often reference classical themes with a light and insightful touch.  Kuhn’s approach to her photography is unusual in that she usually develops close relationships with her subjects, resulting in images of remarkable naturalness and intimacy, and creating the effect of people naked but comfortable in their own skin.”

AIPAD Photography Show New York is held April 10 – 13, 2014 at The Park Avenue Armory in New York City.

Maya, 2012
signed, dated, numbered and titled verso
chromogenic print
30 x 30 inches, edition of 8 plus 2 artist’s proofs

Fault, 2012
signed, dated, titled and numbered verso
chromogenic print
30 x 30 inches, edition of 8 plus 2 artist’s proofs

This article © galleryIntell. Images © Mona Kuhn, provided courtesy of the artist and M+B Gallery. For more information on the featured images please contact press@galleryIntell