Barbara Nitke began her career as a photographer taking stills on the sets of porn films. This was the 80s, however Nitke’s photos didn’t aim to further the extravagant facade of the big budget shoots of the day. Her behind-the scenes images showed a more raw, intimate side of the industry, catching a porn hunk yawning between takes, or a starlet taking a mid-gangbang nap. In the 90s, when the hardcore porn industry moved from New York to LA, Nitke began shooting on the NYC sets of fetish and BDSM movies. Soon after, though her involvement with the The —the country’s oldest support group for sadomasochists—she began documenting the sex lives of real couples within the S/M community. These powerful, romantic images lift the veil, showing the human side of people often written-off as piss drinking, scary monsters in leather masks. More than anything, Nitke’s work enlightens us about the true nature of people who dare to be sexual deviants.
American Ecstasy – A Chat About Porn with Barbara Nitke
Porn’s golden age plays out across the walls of — a bohemian art apartment on Bowery. christened his Tribeca art space’s outpost in February with about a dozen photos from Barbara Nitke’s series, captured on porn sets throughout the 1980s. Some prints are on paper, others on aluminum, lending a proper silver screen. But, even admiring collectors are shy, I learned, about living alongside explicit imagery. Storage APT, or “art presentation template,” as Chuke says, highlights how well Nitke’s sexy shots play in situ.
