solo show john kayser
paris photo, stand A43
On the occasion of Paris Photo 2024 – booth A43 – the Christian Berst Art Brut gallery is presenting around seventy photographs as well as Super 8 videos by John Kayser. Unreleased edits of Super 8 films will be shown on two screens.
If nude photography allowed 19th century artists to do without live models during the execution of a painting, one might wonder to what extent John Kayser (1922-2007) similarly sought to create a medium to endlessly prolong the emotions he experienced during these posing sessions.
Like the photographs of painters, Kayser’s images were not initially intended to leave the secrecy
of the studio. As fascinating as they are, the hundreds of photographs and Super 8 films created between 1959 and 1976 by this Los Angeles aerospace company employee both provoke and raise questions. How can we understand his fascination with the most delicate bodies
in contact with the most diverse and sometimes most incongruous materials ?
As if the weight these bodies could exert made them more alive, and thus more desirable.
As if the ritual of stomping on or lacerating flowers and books with a stiletto heel intensified
the sense of transgression. However, Kayser’s photographs and films also compel us to consider them within their time, in a society tightly bound by puritanism that condemned them to secrecy. Beyond the sensuality and playful aspects they contain, these images invite
us to reconsider the disruptiveness of art in relation to moral or social order. It is art’s ability to move us, both physically and emotionally, that is at stake here.
John Kayser (1922-2007) was born in North Dakota but spent much of his life in California. He served in the army briefly during World War II as an armorer and was later employed by an aerospace company in Los Angeles.
catalog published on the occasion of paris photo 2024
solo show john kayser
from november 7th to november 10th
texts: christian berst, bruno dubreuil
get the catalog: click here