Rachel Stern (b. 1989, NYC) is a photographer whose work considers the intersection of beauty and power. Using materials culled from suburban strip malls she creates images which enter into an accessible discourse and, in the spirit of ‘bread and roses’, demand immediate access to beauty. Her work is a kitsch paradise, a queer-washed history, and an attempt at hope. She received her BFA in Photography and the History of Art and Visual Culture in 2011 from the Rhode Island School of Design, attended Skowhegan in 2014, and graduated from Columbia University in 2016 with an MFA in Visual Arts.
Matthew Leifheit is a photographer and the editor of MATTE Magazine.
Slow Morpheus
Slow Morpheus, Rachel Stern’s first monograph, will be published by Matte Editions in the spring of 2019. This oversized, softcover, 180 page book includes an overview of Stern’s work from 2012 through her most recent works. The book explores themes from the visual history of literature, art, and politics as filtered through a queer-washed, kitsch, and feminist lens. Stern’s work utilizes kitsch as a means to bring a critical and perhaps unnerving set of questions to the most horrifying and overwhelming predicaments which press us as a society. The feminist, socialist doctrine Bread & Roses outlines the critically essential idea that there can be no progress for the proletariat that does not hold beauty core to its values. Slow Morpheus promotes this logic as it looks unflinchingly towards our greatest anguish with the defiant tools of beauty and hope.
Support Slow Morpheus and pre-order a copy of the book but visiting the Slow Morpheus Kickstart page http://kck.st/2SjiWcb
You can learn more about Rachel’s work at www.MsRachelStern.com and more about Matte Editions at www.matteeditions.com
Follow our work @MsRachelStern and @mattelife
In collaboration with James Lyman
To view more of Rachel Stern & Matthew Leifheit’s work please visit their website.