Barbara Nitke (born 1950) Photographer

Barbara Nitke

Barbara Nitke (nata nel 1950) è una fotografa d'arte di New York che si è specializzata in tema di rapporti sessuali umani. Ha lavorato a lungo nel porno e Comunità BDSM.
Nitke è nata a Lynchburg, in Virginia nel 1950 ed è cresciuta in Virginia e Alaska. Attualmente Lei è una fotografa di moda / arte, ed è docente della School of Visual Arts a New York.

 

Barbara Nitke (born 1950) is a New York City art photographer who specializes in the subject of human sexual relations. She has worked extensively in the porn and BDSM communities.
Nitke was born in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1950 and grew up in Virginia and Alaska. She is currently a fashion/art photographer, and is on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts  in New York.

Nitke and the porn business

Hailed by The Village Voice for her quest "to find humanity in marginal sex", Nitke has gained worldwide attention for her affecting and powerful photographs chronicling relationships between consenting adults engaged in sadomasochistic activities.
Her documentation of sexuality began in 1982 on the sets of pornographic films, towards the end of the Golden Age of Porn. She worked in the industry for twelve years as a set photographer on hundreds of adult films. Her photographs from this period reveal the combination of boredom, surrealism, vulnerability and dissociation inherent in the X-rated world. During that time she also became active as a photographer on mainstream television and movie sets, work which she continues today.
In 1991, after the hardcore porn business moved to Los Angeles, she began shooting on the New York sets of fetish and SM movies, which had become the fastest growing segment of the adult film industry.
Three years later she attended her first meeting of The Eulenspiegel Society, the oldest SM support and educational group in the country, to see a presentation by underground photographer Charles Gatewood. The couples she met in the SM scene fascinated her, and she began photographing them in 1994. They became the focus of her book, Kiss of Fire: A Romantic View of Sadomasochism (2003). It was among the first mainstream publications to examine the subject of BDSM.
Nitke ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to produce her second book, Barbara Nitke: American Ecstasy (2012), a memoir in pictures and words of her hardcore porn days.


Nitke v. Gonzales

In 2001, Nitke filed a lawsuit, along with co-plaintiff the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, challenging the constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act, a federal statute prohibiting the publication of obscenity on the Internet. The case was called Nitke v. Ashcroft, then later changed to Nitke v. Gonzales.
Nitke and the NCSF argued that while the Supreme Court's decision in Miller v. California defines obscenity according to community standards, the Internet does not permit publishers to restrict the dissemination of their speech based on geography. Therefore, the plaintiffs claimed, a person posting sexually explicit material on the Internet could be found criminally liable according to the standards of the most restrictive community in the country. This, Nitke said, would chill her freedom of speech and therefore violate her First Amendment rights.
A three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York conducted a trial, and in 2005 found that Nitke and the NCSF had presented insufficient evidence that the variation in community standards is substantial enough to chill the plaintiffs' speech. On March 20, 2006, the Supreme Court affirmed that ruling without opinion.


Books

• Kiss of Fire: A Romantic View of Sadomasochism. New York, NY: Pierrot, 2003. ISBN 978-3-933257-94-9
• Barbara Nitke: American Ecstasy. New York, NY: Pierrot, 2012. ISBN 978-0-615614-36-6

Exhibitions

• 2014: American Ecstasy, One Eyed Jacks, Brighton, England

 

 

Nasty Girls I, 1982

Nasty Girls II, 1982

Blair in Piggies, 1983

 Mitch and Tiffany Clark, 1983

Vanessa del Rio II, 1984

Supergirls Do General Hospital I, 1984

 Supergirls Do General Hospital II, 1984

 Nina, Henri and Damian, 1986

                                                                     Art Ben Taping Ron Jeremy, 1986

Scene From Nameless Video, 1988

Athena Starr in Piggies, 1983

Nina Hartley and Eric Monte, 1985

Pleasure Channel, 1984 

 

Young Nympho II, 1985

Stacy and Joey Silvera, 1985

Nina Hartley and Eric Monte, 1985

Damian in Sweet Revenge, 1986

Jeanna Fine in Firebox, 1986  

Dusty at Bizarre Video, 1991

 

Kourtney, 1992

Sasha, 1992

 TV Sex, 1992

 Bunny Bleu and Kristara Knight, 1992 

 PD and Teddi, 1992 

Brigitte Aime's Smoke Break, 1992  

Porsche Lynn at the Vault, 1992 

 Michelle the Bride, 1992

Strap on Sally, 1993

Fireplayers II, 1995

Mark and Velma, 1996

Tink and the Club Rules, 1997

 Vixen, 1997

Bear and Nancy IV, 1999

Bear and Nancy III, 1999

 Don and Bernadette, 2000

  Jeff at Camp, 2000

  Three Men in the Sigma Clubhouse Tub, 2000 

 Bobby and Austin I, 2000 

 Bobby and Austin II, 2000 

Augusta's Valentine's Day Column, 2000

Ed at the Playhouse Garage, 2000

Scott on his Wheel, 2000

  Jack and Patrick I, 2003

Barbara Nitke: American Ecstasy on Vimeo

 

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https://vimeo.com › The Lost Lectures › Videos

28 mag 2014

Barbara is a photographer who's work can be seen in galleries across the world (though usually behind a ...

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