Bernadinism

More about the book

Bernadine's photographic world is way out, incredible funny at times, disturbing at others. Its compositional strength and color intensity always constitute a visual happening, or as Alva Bernadine himself puts it: "I take the theatricality of surrealism, the elegance of classical haute couture photography, the narrative of reportage and the refinements of advertising photography and mix them all into a 'Bernadinian cocktail' -- a radical photographic synthesis". Bernadine's photographs can be read at two levels: on the surface, a feast for the eyes, below that, a wealth of sublime, ironic, sometimes provocative allusion. After the initial shock -- maybe even the first burst of laughter -- the spectator discovers the photographs' narrative quality, unfolding between careful mise-en-scene and surreal exaggeration. Latex-clad women in their fitted-kitchens, female bodies with two lower or upper torsos -- these are stories from the subculture of male fantasy, defused somewhat by self-mocking exaggeration and surreal form, though without losing anything of their provocative and pugnacious quality.