If you missed Lauren Renner’s In Other’s Words nude photography exhibition at Fine & Raw Chocolate during last year’s Bushwick Open Studios, now’s your chance to catch some brave souls baring their—everything—on the streets of Bushwick and different parts of New York City. But you’ll have to travel over the Williamsburg Bridge to Gallery Bar in the Lower East Side to see it.
In Other’s Words is a three-step project that requires participants to make a list of words others have labeled them and allow a complete stranger to write those very words all over their naked bodies as Renner photographs the process and then the models in open spaces around New York. The aim, Renner has said, is to allow people to publicly embrace their identities.
“[The exhibit will] have pieces from the BOS show, but the rest of the show will be brand new work that hasn’t yet been featured online,” Renner said.
While the method and the goals of the project remain the same, Renner said this exhibit will reveal more of the intimate details that go into creating the photographs, where previously only the final large-scale images of the models in open spaces were displayed.
“What’s exciting is that I’m making the whole presentation a lot more about the process, so the pieces that are up [in the gallery] are blown up images of the body writing, alongside the big finished pieces,” Renner explained. “I’m also displaying the lists handwritten by people so you can actually feel the individual presence more.”
Through the BOS show, Renner said she met new people to photograph for the project, including photographer and Bushwick resident Eva Mueller. She also received more opportunities to display her work at galleries in Williamsburg, including Reverse and The Bishop. It further led to her work being featured in arts magazines Beautiful Savage and Posture, a publication for queer creatives.
Renner chose the locations for these photographs primarily based on the people she was photographing. For instance, she said she photographed Mueller in front of her studio on Varick Street because Mueller “felt she identified with the Bushwick culture and the space in general.”
Renner still is looking for more models to expand In Others’ Words, while focusing more on the performance aspect of the project. She also is brainstorming a separate project that will focus on the concept of intimacy.
“The way we see intimacy, how it’s portrayed to us and the way we’re meant to think about it still can be taboo in so many ways,” Renner said. “I’m curious to see how I can take out the traditional context and explore it.”
Renner’s reception is today Friday from 7-10 p.m. at Gallery Bar in the Lower East Side. The exhibit will be on display until March 6. If you’re interested in being a model of either of Renner’s projects, contact her through email lauren.rennerATyahoo.com.
