MOTEL FETISH: A HIDEAWAY FOR DREAMS OF DESIRE
Photos by Chas Ray Krider / Eric Kroll, editor
"Taschen is this art vampire. He's going to bite me on the
neck and my art is going to have immortality." --Chas Ray
Krider (from an interview with Eric Kroll)
|
"A number of years ago I began to see distinctive layouts in Hustler's Leg World that got me nervous. The photographs were that good. Whoever it was had style and made the women his women. Krider women. Women I began to desire on a monthly basis. In the world of professional golf there is an expression 'the world's greatest golfer not to win a major tournament'. Chas Ray Krider was the world's greatest erotic photographer not to have a book. "Thanks to TASCHEN we now have over 160 Krider images to pore over. To salivate over. Like a good film noir, he takes us to lustful places. Is it a crime scene or a sea of lust? These beautiful, languid women wait for whom? For me. For you. They play the 'waiting game' beautifully. An ass in the air, a pair of crossed legs in nylons, all bathed in warm tones. A still life unstuck in time. So this is what goes on behind closed doors? "Oh, I almost forgot. Alongside these many Midwest femme fatales is Dita, raven-haired icon. Not since Betty Page has a woman fleshed out so correctly a vintage girdle and bra ensemble. "Enjoy. He takes you places where you only vaguely think you have been." --Eric Kroll (Eric Kroll's Fetish Girls, Beauty Parade), editor and pupil "...a compendium of languid beauties in lingerie... There is always the sense that the door is about to burst open, that something is about to happen." --GEAR, United States "Le plus grand photographe érotique, Chas Ray Krider, n'avait pas encore édité de livre. Les éditions TASCHEN rectifient le tir et publient Motel Fetish. Une paire de fesses en l'air, des jambes aux bas nylon shootées dans un motel, pour saliver comme dans un film noir." Jalouse, France "With a dark, cinematic feel and stunningly beautiful women, Chas creates a world that is both sinister and classy." --Terry Osterhout, United States |
Chas Ray Krider is a hipster! And, there is nothing, not tiki or cocktails or cool jazz or bowling shirts, nothing, that more defines hipster culture than the motel. Living in Columbus, Ohio and being very familiar with the motels featured here, I can tell you that Motel Fetish: Hideaway for Dreams of Desire sums up the feelings of passing those motels while driving down one of the strips they populated (if my mom only knew what I was thinking when she drove me to the doctor's office or to a PTA meeting or the Jewish Center). What was going on behind those many doors? What fantasies! Those motels are disappearing, replaced by the ubiquitous Holiday Inns and Best Westerns. Gone or almost gone are the independents (my personal favorite for fantasy The 40 Winks, gone) but the fantasies live on.
Keep an eye out for the sound track Motelesque, available through Monkeys Retreat. Also check out Krider's site:
