We Folk

When Nadav Kander learned of the existence of two “closed” cities on the border between Kazakhstan and Russia, he knew that he would have to visit them. For Dust he photographed the desolated landscapes of the Aral Sea and captured fascinating images of the restricted military zones of Priozersk and Kurtchatov, which did not appear on any map until well after the end of the Cold War.

Nadav Kander was inspired by ideas of Elizabethan purity to create these stunning photographic portraits of six nude females and one male. Terms such as “sculptural” and “monumental” are often applied to artworks that are neither. But Kander has created an unnerving stone-like serenity in these portraits.

“a long-overdue tribute to one of the most varied photographers of his generation” notes the publisher.This 96-page book features selections from Kander’s vast range of photography—nudes, portraits, landscapes, his Yangtze project, and more.

Formal and frank, yet playful and stylised, Nadav Kander’s individual portraits of the 53 members of President Obama’s cabinet constitute one of the most significant commissioned photographic series of the decade.

Nadav Kander creates images in an age of radical change: in a series awarded the famed Prix Pictet in 2009, he photographed China in the process of revolution. Traveling along the Yangtze River, he took serene pictures of people haplessly facing overwhelming change. As Kander himself says: “China is a nation that appears to be severing its roots by destroying its past in the wake of the sheer force of its moving ‘forward’ at such an astounding and unnatural pace. People scarring their country, and a country scarring its people.“

German Photobook Award in Gold 2011

‘Beauty’s Nothing’ is composed of chapters of images, interleaved with short stories, poems, and essays, each responding to a particular image or section. Each sequence elaborates a narrative, at times driven by the commissioned texts and often arising from the friction between two dissociated images.