Nadav Kander’s Nudes Challenge Our Perception Of Beautiful Bodies

The human body is a wonder of diversity. You wouldn’t know it from perusing your local magazine rack, though. In his latest exhibition, Nadav Kander offers a new view of the nude that’s at once classic and contemporary and one that also offers a corrective to the tyranny of airbrushing in popular media.

"Bodies – 6 Women, 1 Man" opened in London last week at the Flowers Gallery, offering visitors a veritable feast of the flesh. Rather than utilize the visual auto-tuning that is fast becoming a society standard--one in which female celebrities are sometimes called "brave" for posing sans makeup--these images emphasize the natural idiosyncrasies of the human form.

All the models involved are covered in white marble dust and shot against a black background. Since the models are all ginger-haired, their skin is fair already--with the dust and contrasting background thrown in, they look alabaster. There is nothing to distract from their raw, corporeal form--except that the models’ faces are almost always obscured. Human contours (and bulges) are presented in a distinctly natural way that feels more truthful than the images we are often saturated with in magazines and on billboards.

The show will run through February 9th, and a book is set to follow.