Photographer and artist Laurel Nakadate is showcasing a pretty strange set of pictures in her new “Fever Dreams at the Crystal Motel” exhibition. Posing on trucks and in skeezy motel rooms in barely there bikinis and underwear was confusing enough, but then she decided to enlist middle aged men she found on Craigslist to smear their inky fingerprints all over the photos. She’s a Yale educated photographer, so I assume she must have had something, um, brilliant in mind when she launched this project, but I just can’t figure out what. Her work is all about the private moments, usually playing peeping Tom and snapping pics of shirtless middle aged men and topless rollerskating teens. I’m not sure why this series of random exorcism videos and bikini clad pictures comes together in exhibition form, but she definitely has people buzzing. What do you think, sexy or stupid? [Laurel Nakadate]
