The Hollywood Suites (Doors) #8
Following a brief stint as a photographer for a bondage magazine in Los Angeles, Kahn began work on a provocative series of photographs entitled The Hollywood Suites (1974-77). Staged in rent-by-the-hour apartments in old Hollywood and featuring models hired through porn agencies, the images sensitively explore issues of bondage, containment, and isolation. As Kahn writes in an artist’s statement: "These were ‘no-exit’ situations, entered into without plan, full of anxiety, in the hope of producing some document of the experience that was explicit, visually powerful, yet went beyond what it was." The earliest works in the series feature semi-clad models in sexually charged scenarios; in the later photographs, Kahn turned his attention to the architecture of the room itself, focusing on mirrors, windows, and doors. Works from The Hollywood Suites were featured in several important group exhibitions in the 1970s, including The Altered Photograph (1979) at P.S. 1 in New York.
Artwork Details
- Title: The Hollywood Suites (Doors) #8
- Artist: Steve Kahn (American, Los Angeles 1943–2018 Oakland)
- Date: 1977
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: Image: 9 1/2 × 12 5/8 in. (24.1 × 32.1 cm)
Sheet: 11 × 14 in. (27.9 × 35.6 cm) - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Twentieth-Century Photography Fund, 2017
- Object Number: 2017.305
- Rights and Reproduction: © Steve Kahn
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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