The exhibition of the famous photographer John Sturges in the center of the Lumiere brothers pictures closed early. It happened on Sunday, 25 September, after the exhibition was attacked by members of the public organization "Russian officers." Earlier, Federation Council member Elena Mizulina said that the exhibition is the "propaganda of pedophilia" and the children's ombudsman Anna Kuznetsova appealed to the prosecutor's office to check the exhibition on the subject of child pornography. Of The the New the Times described the show as she only opened
The artist works with nudity in vivo, where the place and no wash clothes all the signs of the times
Exhibition in Moscow - an absolute event autumn months. Photos are not so much about forty, but they are selective, since the 70-ies of the last century to our time.
WITHOUT EMBARRASSMENT
Once Jock Sturges kept quite modest lifestyle. He served in the army, where he was the chief photographer of military bases in Japan, in 1970, discharged and fulfill the dream of their old age - let your hair. Then he entered the Marlborough College, where he studied educational psychology. After college, he taught at various schools, worked as a photographer, doing mostly portraits, fashion and advertising. Later he defended in San Francisco Master of Arts degree. "It was the most useless of me to waste money - eight thousand dollars", - he admitted later.
In parallel, Sturges was engaged in that it truly fascinated. For nearly forty years he photographed nude family on the beaches of France, Northern California, the Netherlands and Ireland. The idea is to work with the nude in the wild, where the place and no wash clothes all the signs of the times. For decades Sturges returns to the same place, capturing his models in different periods of their lives. Now Jock pictures of the third generation of the heroes. One can safely say that it has already become in this community his own man, a friend, and often assistant. It is no coincidence exhibition called "Without confusion". People posing as naturally and joyfully, even in the pictures seen: unity with nature and the desire for opportunities in everyday life to go without clothes - they are happy and joyful conscious choice.
Now Jock pictures of the third generation of his heroesDEFENSELESS BODY
Fame came to the photographer suddenly and accompanied by a scandal that made him world-famous once. It happened early in the morning of 25 April 1990, when the San Francisco police, accompanied by FBI agents broke into his studio. The artist seized a computer, cameras, negatives and photos - all that was related to his professional activities. It was a shock that shook himself and Sturges, and many Americans associated with the photo. A few days after the raid in the studio knew his name even those who have never held a camera in his hands. After numerous stories on television and articles in the newspapers this name has almost become a household name.
ACTIVISTS US CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY STAGED DEMONSTRATIONS AROUND THE BOOKSTORES THAT SOLD ALBUMS OF PHOTOS STURGES, OUTRAGED PURITANS REQUIRED TO REMOVE THEM AND DESTROY
Subsequently, the FBI and the police actions were found to be unlawful, the court of San Francisco did not show Sturges any charges, he returned to the negatives of those arrested, but the incident showed that the shooting nude unsafe. Activists US Christian community staged demonstrations around the bookstores that sold albums Sturges photographs - he released them a dozen. Outraged Puritans demanded to remove and destroy the photo. And in the state of Alabama in the late 1990s working Sturges and another master, the British photographer and filmmaker David Hamilton, were banned as "pictures of persons younger than 17 years, committing indecent acts." And this despite the fact that the young person, captured in pictures, do not perform any action at all. "I've been too long deepened in their work and forgot that homo sapiens is not always is the way it appears in my photos - and it's very naive on my part," - admitted later the photographer.
Nudity and is now perceived as a challenge to public opinion
Conservative American public accused him of what he was doing pornography. Photographer saved by the fact that he worked with the girls and the girls from the nudist community in their usual habitat, familiar environment. To pose, they do not undress specifically - they were naked before his arrival and did not think to put on after he finished shooting. For them, nudity was natural, and they had no idea that some adults may find in this perversion.
ALONE WITH NATURE
With nudism (or naturism, from the English nature - nature) are closely connected issues of sexuality, religion, taboo. In contrast to the ancient times, in later centuries, public nudity was perceived as something unnatural and shameful, offensive to both the people who are exposed, and those who could observe the nakedness. Even today, the attitude towards nudity is ambiguous. So nudity is always perceived as a challenge to public opinion.
As an organized flow of naturism began to form in Germany at the end of the XIX century, when the two papers have been published that have become fundamental in this regard: "The cult of nudity," the physician and psychiatrist Henry Pudor and "nudity" Richard Ungevittera. Their essence is the need to live in harmony with nature. The authors spoke about the benefits of gymnastics and physical education, and advocated vegetarianism. It was an aesthetic movement. German photographer Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden in 1890 photographing nudes on the east coast of Sicily. It joined a provincial Italian village life with the ancient ruins of dilapidated temples, Roman cisterns and aqueducts. His photographs are widely published and sold. In 1899, in the "World of Art" magazine (№№ 7-12) Zinaida Gippius published a note telling about the evenings at the Villa von Gledena. Among the guests were photographer Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia, Edward VII in English, Spanish Alfonso XIII, Richard Strauss, Marconi, Oscar Wilde, Eleonora Duse, Gabriele D'Annutsio, Anatole France ... guests were drinking coffee on the balcony of dark and light Sicilian wine: "From the garden It smelled of roses, still some damp, dark night with flowers and moist heat. "
For girls from communities nudist nudity is natural, and it does not occur that it is possible to find a perversion
In 1936, five years after the photographer's death, his works were destroyed by the fascist police in Italy as pornographic. The history of the twentieth century - is the story of man's relationship with his naked body. And the story of the confrontation, including political. But by and large do not confront class, not social, not even the cultural and personal. Repeatedly naturists were Bernard Shaw and Albert Camus, Tolstoy and Albert Einstein.
"... The more we are able to stay in the sun and in the water, the better! Ah, Fried, as it is wonderful when you have the opportunity to throw off everything and expose themselves sunlight! And think about it, I spoke about the sun baths to his girlfriend, and she found it very obscene. In fact, this breed of people still exist? "- This from the novel by Erich Maria Remarque's" Dream Attic "(1920). Poet Maximilian Voloshin loved to walk naked in a desert Crimea: "Greece did not know yet all the finesse of our sensibility. Nudity came after, with gymnastic and sporting movement. It arose not from the aesthetic requirements and need of gymnastics. But then aesthetics has been transformed by it. "
One of humanitarian victories of the twentieth century was the formulation adopted by the August 8, 1974 the International Federation of Naturists, existing UNESCO. "Naturism - a way of life in harmony with nature, which is the external manifestation of naked people in the society in order to create favorable conditions for the respect of the man himself, other people and the environment."
STURGES BELIEVES IT FOREVER DEPRIVED OF THE OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN, THANKS TO THE POPULARITY OF HIS WORKS OF ARTISTIC MERIT OR BECAUSE OF SCANDALS ARISING AROUND THEM
STOLEN INNOCENCE
Many personages of their pictures Jock Sturges photographs for a long time, tracing all the changes they undergo. "Most of all I like the photos from the series, which I started a long time, sometimes during pregnancy the mother of my future models; then the birth of children, the children themselves in the different periods of their life ", - he said. - I have a series of photographs that reflect the 25-year periods of life. "
Sturges believes that it is very difficult to achieve fame, being engaged exclusively in artistic photography. Now it is widely known, but believed that it ever made it impossible to know whether it works extremely popular thanks to artistic merit or is it the result of emerging scandals around them. "I feel like I was robbed, and I will never be able to return stolen." Society intervenes in the private life of citizens. These vestiges of totalitarianism are in demand in any conservative environment. Once a person becomes independent of religious or social pressure that is uncontrolled, it is perceived as a threat.
Officially, nudism is forbidden in most Muslim countries, and in China, although it continues to be practiced in the resort of Hainan, where the eager vacationers from around the world. Chinese authorities banned the nudists to sunbathe on the beaches of the island, as well as measures to combat troublemakers use CCTV and speakers. No better than our own guardians of morality. "We can not continue to contribute to the spread of vice" - said the representative of the party "United Russia" Lyudmila Stebenkova, which also acts as the chairman of the Moscow City Duma committee on health and public order. With these words she began her crusade against Russian nudists.
Photo: © Jock Sturges / Center of Photography Lumiere Brothers
