visual arts

Letting it all Hang Up Herb Ascherman’s bodies of work on display at the Kinsey Insititute

By Milenko Budimir

Fine art enthusiasts in northern Ohio have enjoyed the photographic work of Herb Ascherman Jr. for decades. In addition to shooting thousands of weddings, family portraits and corporate CEOs (as well as award-winning portraits for Northern Ohio Live’s annual Awards of Achievement), he’s also given free reign to his passion for fine art photography including nudes, figure studies and erotic photography.

Photographer Herb Ascherman’s nude and
erotic photos, mostly of Clevelanders,
will be on display at the Kinsey Institute
in Bloomington, Indiana, beginning
August 11.

Now, this body of work has found a true home. The culmination of Ascherman’s decades-long study of the human form comes this month at a solo exhibition of his photographs titled Infinitely Variable: Nude and Erotic Photographs by Herbert Ascherman Jr., on display at the world-renowned Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction on the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.

After exhibiting a few platinum prints in a group show of erotic photography a few years ago at the Kinsey, Ascherman began thinking about the tens of thousands of negatives he’d accumulated during 40 years of photographing nude and erotic figure studies. Eventually, Ascherman began sending the Kinsey his work, and to date, the institute has an archive of more than 450 of Ascherman’s prints.

Recently I sat down with Ascherman to chat about his motivation and the upcoming show.

MILENKO BUDIMIR: How did you get interested in nude photography?

HERB ASCHERMAN: The first nudes that I ever did were of my college girlfriend, in 1968. I think that as I became intellectually and aesthetically aware, I was just amazed by the beauty of the human body. I was always struck by the close proximity of someone you love, and the way in which you see them. But really, I always had a desire and drive to capture the moments that I felt most beautiful. And those are situations that everyone has experienced, being naked or certain erotic, intimate moments.Capturing that fleeting light on your partner’s body, their face, arms, hands. It’s always been up to artists to capture those moments of intimacy.

MB: Who are the people in the photographs?

HA: 90 percent of the people I photographed in the nude were Clevelanders. They are friends of mine, or people who have contacted me and commissioned me, as well as people who I’ve met and asked to pose.

And although I press the button and do the lighting, it is really the subject that is the object of the photograph, even though I get the credit for taking the photo. I always say that a good photograph is a collaboration. Without that rapport, that special relationship between the photographer and the subject, there is no image. Ultimately, though, we’re there to have fun.

MB: How do you view this aspect of your photography in relation to your other work, such as wedding, portrait, corporate, etc?

HA: The majority of my work deals with people.The stuff that I get paid for deals with people with clothes. The stuff that I enjoy doing is people without clothes. The same aesthetic goes into producing an elegant portrait for a boardroom as it does for a bedroom.

MB: Which photographers have provided you with inspiration?

HA: In portraiture,Yousuf Karsh and Arnold Newman, neither of whom did nudes.They were the two greatest portrait photographers of the 20th century. I also draw quite a bit from the early French portrait photographers Joseph Nicéphore Niépce and Nadar, because they were painters who studied Renaissance painting and lighting, and took that knowledge and applied it to the new media of photography in the middle of the 19th century.

Ascherman credits the collaboration between subject
and photographer with producing a memorable image.

As far as contemporary nudes, Helmut Newton cornered the fetish market and did it in such a high-class, stylized manner, creating seemingly bizarre sexual fantasies under the guise of fashion. But the master is Alfred Stieglitz, who freed photographic imagery from the 19th century. He also created the first composite photograph of a nude: his wife, the artist Georgia O’Keefe, having photographed her over a 20-year period.

MB: How do you establish that rapport with your subjects that makes for a successful image? After all, it must be somewhat intimidating to pose naked for a photographer.

HA: I don’t impose myself intentionally on the image. I may move a light, or tell them to move slightly here or there. They’re much more creative than I am. If you come into my studio, you have in mind your own set of parameters and images. I’m there to record.

You tell me what you think, what you see, what you feel. Because I can’t for the life of me see, let alone invent, what you have in your mind. A lot of the fantasy pictures were based on one premise; come in with your fantasies. Show me your dark little corners. And they did.

And the majority of these photos were shot in Cleveland, and we’re a relatively conservative city. But then again, the Spencer Tunick photograph back in 2004 drew the second largest number of people at the time for a U.S. photo shoot. Draw your own conclusions about that.

For more information on the exhibition, visit www.kinseyinstitute.org. The show runs from August 11 to October 17 with an opening reception on September 12 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Ascherman will give a gallery talk at 6:30 p.m.

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