Sexual freedom and illusions Summer of Love Photography

This summer the Noorderlicht Photogallery brings you Summer of Love, a blistering exposition in which four photographers take up sexual freedom and illusions.

Emmanuel Guillaud roamed through Tokyo at night. Until the sun rises is his new installation about loneliness, about men who wander through parking lots and and school yards: public places which by night change into a temporary ghetto. They hope for chance encounters, are 'in search of a kick without obligations', or actually of intimacy� When the sun comes up they leave again, preferring to forget what has happened. Emmanuel Guillaud (France, b. 1970) lives and works in Tokyo. He was the first Western photographer to receive the Tokyo Wonderwall Award (City of Tokyo, Museum of Contemporary Art of Tokyo, Metropolitan Museum of Photography). The installation until the sun rises is being shown for the first time by Noorderlicht.

Katharina Hesse, in Human Negotiations, gives us a different picture of the prostitution industry in Bangkok, Thailand. She followed a number of women outside working hours and interviewed then extensively about their lives and their background, their choices and their motives. It appeared very much the question whether our Western image - women as powerless victims of the Eastern sex industry - can be maintained. Hesse dares to oppose the stereotype of sexual slavery with an intimate, and at the very least ambiguous picture of ordinary women who make a better life possible for themselves and their children by selling dreams. Katharina Hesse (Germany, b. 1966) studied Chinese Language and Culture in Paris and worked as a journalist for the German television broadcaster ZDF and for Newsweek. She is self-taught as a photographer. Her work has appeared in Courrier International, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Marie-Claire, Neon, Newsweek, Stern, Vanity Fair and other publications.

Yevgeny Kondakov asked himself the question: what happens when the most repressed country in the world is exposed to mass-market consumerism and a government that does not care what ordinary people do? In Russian Sexual Revolution he demonstrates that not only an economic and political revolution took place in the former Soviet Union, but also a sexual revolution: in all its wildness, its strangeness, its vulgarity, and its innocence.Yevgeny Kondakov (Russia, b. 1961) is a freelance photojournalist. His work has been seen in Stern, The New York Times, Time and Paris Match. He is co-author of the photo investigation How do Russians love? His photo book Russian Sexual Revolution appeared in 2008.

Amy Touchette in The World Famous *BOB*, documents the life of a female burlesque dancer living in New York. Raised in California, *BOB*'s eccentricity as an adolescent eventually led her to a life of alienation and destructiveness. Waking up from the nightmare, she viewed moving to New York as her second chance and an opportunity to finally live out her fantasy of being a star. Amy Touchette followed *BOB* for four years and was able to get a look inside her life, without restrictions, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.Amy Touchette (USA, b. 1970) is a freelance photographer and teacher's assistant at the International Center of Photography in New York. Summer of Love is curated by Wim Melis.

Noorderlicht Photogallery Akerkhof 12 Groningen, The Netherlandsadmission freeopen Wednesday through Sunday 12 AM - 6 PM