Asia Bondage

What should we make of a project in which several dozen Asian women -- well-educated, independent, liberated, experimentally minded, and certainly familiar with the stereotype of the submissive Asian female ...

volunteer to participate in the production of highly stylized fine-art photographic images by a non-Asian male in which they appear nude and elegantly, often intricately, bound?In the B&D scene, one speaks of dominants as "tops" and submissives as "bottoms."

So I could propose that, in the parlance of that sexual preference, these women are "topping from below": not just participating consensually but actually controlling the scenario, and thus the imagery, while ostensibly surrendering all power to another. I could instead describe it as a collaborative form of body art, in which artist/photographer and model/performer join forces as partners to generate potent iconic imagery addressing the complex relationship of physical and psychological constraint and release, restriction versus freedom, control and abandon, the dynamic tension between feminine and masculine energies.

Alternatively, I could analogize these works to the experimental Japanese dance form called butoh, in which motion and activity periodically resolve in suddenly frozen, dramatic configurations. Or propose it as a branch of sumi-e, classic Japanese ink-brush painting, wherein precise execution of spontaneous gestures results from meditative inner sources in combination with careful, patient preparation. From a different perspective, I could suggest that, for both the photographer and his subjects, this represents a form of play: play with each other, play with cultural assumptions, play with the body, play with the medium of photography, play with the minds of the viewers of these pictures. I could point out that these pictures exemplify the traditional values of classic creative studio photography -- formal exploration, spatial drama, nuanced lighting, concern with chiaroscuro, attention to textural detail -- while investigating that creative territory in which the artist's inventiveness and the imaginative function of the libido find common ground. However we consider them, these dualities and contradictions resolve and these partnerships succeed.

Together, Steven Speliotis and his accomplices construct a microcosm in which they move through and past stereotypes into a zone of unexpected freedom and mutual empowerment. By offering these visions for our consideration, they invite us to join them there. So, finally, I could recommend that we let these images speak for themselves, and listen to the subtle resonances of the varied voices in which they do so. A. D. Coleman

About the Author - Steven Speliotis

Steven Speliotis first became recognized as a professional photographer in Salem,Ma. Where he was hired to photograph the Salem State College Dance Company’s Annual Dance Concert and the S.S.C. Theatre Department’s yearly productions. Steven’s studies also include: Ballet & Modern Dance, Sculpture and Art History. His early photographs of dance & portraiture were exhibited in several juried shows and won him much acclaim. As a young photographer, Steven was encouraged to continue what had begun to be his career as a Dance, Theatre & Portrait Photographer. Steven met and worked alongside his mentor, the late renown Dance/Celebrity Photographer Kenn Duncan and when Mr. Duncan died in 1986, it was bestowed upon Steven to continue Duncan’s legacy of thirty years. Steven resides and has been working in New York for fifteen years. Speliotis’ photographs have been exhibited, collected and published widely. Ie. LIFE, Time, L.A.Times, the Village Voice, Art in America, Dance Magazine and Exercise for Men Only, to name a few

"ASIAN BONDAGE" Photographer Speliotis explores his fascination of Dominance & Submission with the Asian female as he expertly sculpt and bound each subject in white rope. Having studied Asian Traditions, dance, yoga & sculpture Speliotis choreographs his subjects through each session creating provocative images to dazzle the eye. Believing we are all in some type of "bondage," Speliotis specifically chose the Asian female as his model for his project from his personal affinity with the history of women in Asian cultures.

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