Andrew Danson Danushevsky's nude photographs arrived unexpectedly during the Spring of 2002 in a room over-looking Prague's 12 th century old-town square Staromestske Namesti.

Danson Danushevsky is no stranger to controversy as seen during the mid 1980's when he convinced all the Canadian Premiers, Prime Minister, Leader of the opposition and other politicians to photograph themselves alone in their offices. He then persuaded them to release total control over their yet unseen, often wacky images. The self-portraits appeared in Danson Danushevsky's book, Unofficial Portraits (Doubleday) which turned out to be a Canadian best-seller.

In Prague, Danson Danushevsky's room was given to him when he was organizing the Broken Ground Exhibition of Canadian photographs at the renowned Galerie Václav Spala.   He soon realized that he was given one of the city's splendid old rooms that held more than a fine view. Danson Danshevsky states that "the room possessed what I can only describe as a potent sense of past occurrence. Something from that past entered me when I walked into the subdued space.   The room's aged, musty scent of tobacco and old wood held a past I could not know.   Around dawn the next morning, in partial consciousness an inner voice told me to photograph women nude in the room.   It was just like that."

Through Danson Danushevsky's contacts in Prague's arts community women came to be photographed and he decided to photograph every subject who knocked on his door.   Though conventional beauty bores him as do most nude photographs   Danson Danushevsky soon became conscious that his photo sessions were provoking narratives about desire, sexuality, gender, beauty, performance, relationships, male/female power, spirituality and in some instances, pornography    "I was unprepared for the self-expression from some of my subjects that came from a mixed comfort-zone.   This was not a planned project.   You can't strategize spontaneity; it just happened and I could not have done this without dramatic collaborative energy" he says.

Back in Canada Danson Danushevsky refused to show the work because in his own mind the photographs were incomplete.   It wasn't until a recent move to Halifax from Toronto that he began writing text on his prints that engaged the nude figures.   The text from intimate events within and beyond the Prague sessions has transformed the images.

 

I love you woman exhibition opens at Studio 22 on March 29 and continues through April 19.