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Fotomuseum Den Haag Stadhouderslaan 43 | Postbus 72 | 2517 HV Den Haag

Geliefden – Timeless Love

Marrie Bot

04 Sep — 14 Sep 2004

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In this exhibition, Marrie Bot (1946) presents a selection of colour photos from her new book Geliefden – Timeless Love. They portray pairs of older lovers and focus on the erotic side of the home lives of ordinary people aged between 50 and 85. Bot shows that the way they enjoy their love and sexual attraction is not odd or unpleasant, but entirely natural. At the same time, she shows there is nothing frightening or nasty about the naked bodies of old people. Since the 1970s, we have become accustomed to seeing pictures of nudes in every conceivable context. Even soft porn tableaux in fashion magazines and erotic films on TV no longer have the power to shock – provided that the models are young and good-looking. But we are evidently still uncomfortable with the idea that elderly people can have active love lives and enjoy sex. We would rather not be confronted by such images. As far back as the 1980s, Marrie Bot was already wondering why she never saw photos or films of old people in the nude or making love. She deliberately set out to find such images but came up with very few.

So in 2000 she decided to start making them herself. Bot selected ten couples who were prepared to be photographed. They are all older people with harmonious relationships, who’s sex lives are based on love and affection. Marrie Bot photographed them in their own homes, because she wanted to portray their day-to-day domestic eroticism. The photographs in this selection show a wide variety of activities, ages, social backgrounds and physiques. Marrie Bot has worked as an art photographer for over 30 years and often chooses to focus on universal human themes surrounded by some sort of taboo. She conducts a lengthy in-depth exploration of the subject and takes many photographs before publishing the results in a coherent set of words and images. Bot is renowned for her books Miserere (1984), Bezwaard Bestaan (The Burden of Existence, 1988) and Een Laatste Groet (A Last Farewell, 1998). In 1989 she was awarded the Maria Austria Prize for her book The Burden of Existence and in 1990 the Heineken Prize for Art for her entire oeuvre. During the exhibition, Marrie Bot’s book Geliefden – Timeless Love (64 pp., 38 full-colour reproductions) will be on sale at the Museum. It is designed, written (in Dutch and English) and privately published by Marrie Bot herself. Distribution: Ef & Ef, Thorn, ISBN 90-800066-6-1, € 25. Important information concerning the images Copyright: © Marrie Bot, PB 49, 3000 AA Rotterdam, Holland. All rights reserved. Strict agreements have been made with those photographed about the conditions of publication. Because of this, it is expressly prohibited to reproduce, transmit or store in a retrieval system any part of this site in any form or by any means, without prior permission in writing from author and publisher Marrie Bot, Rotterdam, under penalty of prosecution.