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Canwest News Service
One of the world's most celebrated — and controversial — nude photographers returns to Toronto later this week: Colour Prints by Jock Sturges opens at the Stephen Bulger Gallery on Saturday.
This marks the third time the gallery has hosted Sturges; exhibitions were held in 2001 and 1998.
"I think he's quite simply the best at what he does," gallerist Stephen Bulger says. "He's in complete control of the work that he does."
What Sturges does — what he's done for over 30 years, in fact — is photograph naturists around the world, including children. In 1990, the FBI and San Francisco police raided his workshop and seized his equipment, a move that was decried by the international art community. Later the same decade, right-wing organizations including Focus on the Family targeted bookstores that carried his work. Bulger says there's been little controversy the last two times his gallery has hosted Sturges, a native of New York who now calls Seattle home.
"A lot of people don't understand the division between sexuality and sensuality," Bulger says. "A lot of mass media makes us think that if someone is naked they're looking to have sex. That's just simply not the case. In terms of Jock, he's a nudist and photographs his fellow nudists. So it's a different situation entirely. If his subjects aren't wearing clothes, he isn't wearing clothes either. They were naked before he started photographing them, they kept their clothes off, and then their clothes remained off after the photo session."
The exhibition primarily features work Sturges shot at the nudist colony of Montalivet in France, where he has been working for many years.
"It's pretty pervasive for people to be shameful of their natural selves," says Bulger, "whereas where Jock is photographing that's not a word that they're familiar with at all. And that's really what they're rebelling against: this idea that you should be shameful of yourself." – Colour Prints by Jock Sturges runs from Nov. 28 to Jan. 16 at the Stephen Bulger Gallery, 1026 Queen St. W., Toronto. A reception for Sturges will be held Dec. 9 at 8 p.m. Prices start at US$1,200.
mmedley@nationalpost.com
