Richard Kern, Action

Richard Kern likes real women: unpretentious, unadorned, and definitely undressed. Those who love Kern know each book is an invitation to join him in his privileged world where natural young women share their most intimate moments. Richard has never lost his boyish curiosity with girls and their secrets, so instead of posing them in sterile sets he follows them through the house--or rather his New York apartment--from backyard to kitchen to bathroom to bedroom, capturing every sexy and embarrassing moment. Action is his most revealing book yet. For 280 pages we careen through the life of Kern, accompanied by dozens of energetic, fun-loving, clothes-dropping exhibitionists. "Young women want to show the world they're not like their man-hating women's lib mothers," a Kern model once told me, and these girls certainly get the point across. To further assist the young ladies in their rebellion, the book includes an hour-long DVD of original Kern film with an exclusive musical score by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth.
Richard Kern keeps things hot but cool with a parade of sexy, laid-back women shot in his inimitable, low-key style. In casual, informal settings, these girls exude both attitude and an extreme aversion to clothing.
Richard Prince, painter, photographer, and collagist, was born in 1949 in the Panama Canal Zone. He is known as a critic of and commentator on American consumer culture and as a master of appropriated art. He currently lives and works in New York City.
Dian Hanson produced a variety of men's magazines from 1976 to 2001, including Juggs, Outlaw Biker, and Leg Show, before becoming TASCHEN's Sexy Book Editor. Her titles include the "body part" series, The Art of Pin-up, Psychedelic Sex, and Ren Hang.
Richard Kern was born in North Carolina in 1954 and has lived and worked in New York City since 1979. In the '80s he produced a series of short films that are now recognized as the central works of the movement known as the Cinema of Transgression. In the '90s he switched to still photography full time. Since 2000 he has primarily devoted himself to gallery shows and, beginning in 2005, to his VBS video series "Shot By Kern."
"These photographs may strike some people as sexist and others as sexy. Either way they are uncommonly visceral."--The New York Times