Where is home? Where we grew up? Where we live now? The place where we made new friends, where we feel understood? Home can warm your heart. It can bring back memories of Sunday roast at Grandma’s, the smell of the forest and mown grass, the first kiss. But home can also be restrictive, exclusive, hostile towards strangers. It all depends on who interprets the term.
Red lips, naked breasts, provocative poses
The photographer Ellen von Unwerth has approached her homeland in a very idiosyncratic way – and in her usual provocative way. In her photo book “Heimat” the models show red lips, bare breasts, provocative poses; they wear dirndls and lederhosen, they open their eyes wide and let freshly milked milk run down their chins, necks and cleavage. They wear traditional costumes in front of old farmhouses, against a mountain backdrop, in forests. The world of Alpine sex films from the 1970s meets the power girls from the 1990s. For this book Ellen von Unwerth returned to Bavaria, where she lived as a teenager. “I wanted to shake up the clichés, make fun of them a little, but in a loving way,” she says.
Whether it’s traditional folk costume or traditional clothing, both give you a sense of home that has long fascinated Ellen von Unwerth and that she has now portrayed in a more frivolous and ironic way in her book. It shows her unmistakable style, her way of presenting female beauty, a mixture of fetish, humor and eroticism. Porn chic, this time ironically broken up by cowsheds and Alpine panoramas.
Illustrated book shows “home” pictures by Ellen von Unwerth
Ellen von Unwerth was born in Frankfurt in 1954. Her parents died early, and she grew up in an orphanage and with foster families. At the age of ten, Ellen von Unwerth moved to Kaufbeuren in the Allgäu, then to Munich at 16 – and after graduating from high school, she traveled all over the world. First as a clown’s assistant at the Roncalli Circus, then as a model, and finally as a photographer. She was a traveler all her life, and it was easy for her to try new things and move on; she had no roots that held her too firmly in one place. Today she lives in Paris and New York and is one of the best-known and most sought-after photo artists in the world.
The illustrated book “Heimat” was published in 2017 as a limited collector’s edition by Taschen Verlag. Now there is an unlimited, cheaper edition of the book.
Source: Stern
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
