The photographer Norbert Schoerner has turned his camera to the subject of food, working alongside Tokyo-based art director Steve Nakamura to create a sublime and mysterious portfolio of solitary meals, obscure ingredients and improbable still lives.
Nearly Eternal is not an everyday foray into edible imagery. Schoerner is an acclaimed and accomplished photographer, a pioneer of digital imagery with numerous fashion credits to his name and has long-running collaborations with The Face, Dazed & Confused and the Chapman Brothers. The German photographer’s partnership with Nakamura – another regular collaborator – treats food and its accessories as if they were props in an ongoing but obscure narrative. Both men revel in the use of rich blocks of colour and abstract forms, as well as the physicality of working with real things in real places.
Nearly Eternal revels in juxtaposition and artifice, whether it’s enticing or jarring (a smashed glass amidst melted ice, a strawberry against fake green fingernails). The result highlights not just the absurdity of hyper-styled food photography but the transient nature of food itself.
Simple food items morph into props over the course of the series
A meal without an eater – Nearly Eternal plays with the concept of 'food as display', something to be admired and not consumed...
... which touches upon the inherent irony of the 'food book' – at its heart, food photography creates images that 'look too good to eat', as seen in this almost-too-perfect, potentially plastic fruit
The dilemma: how to capture to the transcient nature of food via the distinctly un-transcient form of still photography, which by very definition can only capture a moment?
Schoerner tackles this by making each dish an art work, something intended to last, and Nakamura makes each photograph a beautiful record, together forming something which is 'nearly eternal', despite the subject's perishable nature. Pictured: two egg yolks are delicately suspended between pincer-like chopsticks, mimicking a hanging kumquat and testing our sensory perception
The role of 'eater' or 'restaurant-goer' is never filled – chairs remain empty and forks remain clean – which forces the reader into the position of 'eater', visually tasting and sampling each meal
Nearly Eternal will be available from December
INFORMATION
Nearly Eternal by Norbert Schoerner and Steve Nakamura, Chance Publishing (an imprint of Claire de Rouen Books) limited to 500 copies. Available from December, from Claire de Rouen's website
Photography: Steve Nakamura and Norbert Schoerner. Courtesy Claire de Rouen Books
ADDRESS
Claire de Rouen
First Floor
125 Charing Cross Road
London, WC2H 0EW