Jimmy DeSana

This surreally lyrical, sexually charged book collects Jimmy DeSana's earlier work, made from 1980 to 1983. For his series Suburban, DeSana staged photos of nude subjects in various evocative poses, entwined with everyday objects and lit with gel-covered tungsten lights. Rather than constructing a space, the "suburban" was a place of examining stereotypes and norms. Of this series, DeSana told Laurie Simmons, his contemporary and longtime roommate, "I don't really think of that work as erotic. I think of the body almost as an object. I attempted to use the body but without the eroticism that some photographers use frequently. I think I de-eroticized a lot of it. Particularly in that period, but that is the way the suburbs are in a sense."