Fetish Theatre
Alan Tex is a master of the art when it comes to throwing light on the complex nature of the eroticism which characterises interpersonal relationship, capturing the darker side of our desires in a series of photographic scenes.
The Belgian photographer draws mainly on styles common in fetishist circles, but also from sculpture and other art forms. This lends his work a "Gesamtkunstwerk", and one that calls on a great deal of fantasy on the part of the viewer.
This is a truly unusual book portraying the work of a really deranged artist!
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Press comments and reviews
Art-photographer Alan Tex has created exceedingly imaginative photos. He staged crazy, erotic situations which often border on the surreal and which are nothing short of astonishing. (SELEN, Italy)
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People or masks wearing costumes designed by Alan Tex act on his stage sets, thus becoming the erotic expression of dreams, wishes, and yearnings in which the observers, men and women alike, can find themselves. (SCHLAGZEILEN, Germany)
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Obscene images and abysmal stagings from the fetish scene. (PENTHOUSE, Germany)
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“Fetish Theatre” certainly cannot be compared with a typical volume of fetish photos. Alan Tex’s photos are coarse, direct, blunt. Above all, the word “theatre” is meant literally: each photo is a staged scene with unusual props – and these scene aren’t always for people with weak nerves. (MARQUIS, Germany)
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His pictures astonish us. They’re very unusual. The lush reddish tones and the gold give these photos a dramatic expressiveness of a kind that’s never been seen before. (WET SET, Australia)
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Foreword of this book
Let us imagine for a moment that the photographs by Alan Tex with their risible protagonists capture all eternity. But to do so would be to turn a blind eye to part of our own existence. If the circus and theatre were merely venues hosting acrobatic feats, they would not impinge on life as we know it.
Is the world not just a kind of big-top, one
in which we attempt in a stumbling and occasionally rambling way to stage our current affairs of the heart. How often has one tried
to reach out to new horizons, only to be hampered by the daily grind which stands in the way of that trapeze of vanquished longing.
The circus, with its golden and cochineal hues, is a place of disorder and discontent, one which bears witness to our hopes and desires. The pictures in this tome are not just for the eyes, but allow a glimpse of our deep subconscious, itself a region where feelings and fears well up.
Here, the symbolic baroque decor proscribes laughing at the fate of others, it is our own dramas that suddenly seem droll. Nothing
is left out: renowned animals of the ring are
put through their paces; human exhibitionists in serpent form, dreadful jugglers, clowns causing consternation, and all manner of figures we know and love can be made out.
The depictions of this foreign world are capricious in their own tragic way, the fool dallying with alliances in desperation. Our final, farcical certainties escape only after being maimed in this universe of buffoons.
If truth be told, the mirror held up to us is rather abhorrent.
Sophie Bastiaens
Criminologist
