NÄHE

Intimacy is an ambivalent phenomenon — and not just since social distancing has become part of our everyday lives. Closeness has become part of yearning, while distance is considered something to overcome. This notion, however, falls short: art demonstrates to us that ambivalence has always determined the metaphors for proximity and distance. This book compiles works of art that look at the (nude) body and its surfaces, seeing the skin as a barrier as well as a point of contact between interior and exterior. The artists are on the hunt for closeness among friends, strangers, family members, and couples, as well as a sense of intimacy with oneself. Under rubrics such as “Touch,” “ Feel,” and “Seduce,” the publication examines the dimensions of intimacy as a feeling, an event, and a condition, as a physical, emotional, and spiritual phenomenon in photography, video, performance, drawing, and painting. artists Marcela Böhm, Andrea Božic & Julia Willms, John Coplans, EVA & ADELE, FLATZ, (e.)Twin Gabriel, Simone Haack, Franziska Nast und Annegret Soltau