Elements, in SHOT BY KERN from Taschen
Elements, in SHOT BY KERN from Taschen

[Bonus]

Elements, in SHOT BY KERN

music and video dvd insert

review by Reviewer Rob

Elements, DVD containing the music of Thurston Moore, approx 59 minutes, which is an insert in back cover of the photo art book Shot By Kern (hardcover with DVD, 8.9 x 11.8 inches, 288 pages, $ 39.99 released May 2013 by Taschen    (dvd insert)    This disc is split into two main parts, 12 exterior chapters and 13 interior ones. The Thurston Moore music is in the interior chapters. There’s also some musicless “extras” afterwards where the models are videotaped showering, doing naked jumpingjacks, getting a creamy white goo squirted on them. It’s probably liquid icing, I’d assume.
“Groovy And Linda”
Richard Kern started making experimental films in the 1980’s in New York with Lydia Lunch and Henry Rollins, and it looks like he’s still there today. But now VICE Magazine is sending him all over the word on assignment to shoot naked girls for their NSFW section on their website’s menubar. In Elements as well as in Shot By Kern we see an extension of his earlier cinema of transgression, although in 2013 the audience might be a bit inured to the shock value. The real girl models rolling around panty-clad on a bed seem so prosaic after ten to fifteen years of solid porn mass consumption where everything is available at the click of a mouse. The scene has changed too. NYC isn’t very boho now. Even Willimaburg is high rent. It’s good to know that Kern’s style never changed much from New York Girls. If anything it’s softened. No bondage or lit candle insertions here. The music on this DVD is as an atmospheric complement to Kern’s art photography. Kern’s work has always been art, never porn, per-se. Kern’s teamwork with Thurston Moore goes at least back to 1986 when he shot the cover to Sonic Youth’s third album EVOL. Now, 27 years later, their birthing of this baby demonstrates their collaboration is still fresh. Art photos, art rock, punk rock, art videography – call it what you want. The music and naked girls on this dvd are good fun, but the disc was impossible to extract without damaging the cover sleeve. ~RR


“House Sitter” is a clip/chapter on Elements that made it past Youtube censors.

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