Completely clothed and with an awkward stare, Leigh Ledare sits on the edge of the bed. He’s asked his mother and her lover to ignore his presence, to not notice he’s even there, a few inches from them. She pretends for a bit but then, once aroused and entangled in the most erotic situation, she starts to ask her partner to go inside her.
A son finally comes to terms with his mother’s entire self and learns from it. Tina Peterson assures she’s never crossed the lines toward incest. However, on some occasions, she’s asked the photographer to come closer and unashamedly gives him a passionate kiss. He waits for the right moment and takes a picture.
Despite this Oedipus-like relationship being something most would not be okay with, Ledare plays, gets excited, and even aroused. He knows no archetypes and doesn’t even try to place them in this situation. A life without social restrictions or constructs is a life without cultural taboos that are passed down by family or partners.
Sex sells. But picturing an artist that, as part of his photographic experiments, captures his mother sexually enjoying herself with younger men could make even those with the best intentions to turn the page or observe in disgust. More than a few were grossed out as they saw the title in the morning scroll through their timeline. In order to discover this photographic proposal one needs a bit of courage and less hesitation. His mother has always been his muse and a focus of his art.
Ledare feels a sense of freedom when photographing his mother. He even became friends with the young man who appears in several images. The three of them looked at the shots and approved. None of them were terrified; instead they saw a relationship between a man and a woman. A woman who does not let the fact that she’s nearing the age of 50 stop her from having an active sex life. Ledare sees his mother as someone who understands the significance of placing herself in a suggestive position in order to make others reflect. He says his mother is a brave and expressive woman.
Known for his controversial sexual experiments, like when he hired prostitutes and college girls to photograph, Ledare has acquired a cult-like status. In the nineties he was Larry Clark’s assistant. His images, as he reminds us, are about the “will to see what remains hidden, produces shame and moral anxiety.”
Tina was the one who asked him to document her sexual practices, which are part performance and enjoyment. She left home at the age of 13 in hopes of getting a scholarship for the Joffrey Ballet in NYC. She danced, but then her father stopped supporting her economically. So she went back to Seattle where she met the photographer’s father. The couple was never able to maintain a stable relationship. She got pregnant and passed all her hopes and dreams to Leigh’s older brother. She went into exotic dance, and from that moment has spent her life breaking taboos. She has been photographed for seven years only by her son’s lens.
Leigh Ledare assures that the images are not voyeuristic, but are redefining of social relationships. Born in Seattle, Washington in 1976 he’s done projects such as Pretend You’re Actually Alive, where his pictures reached a wide audience.
“One day I told my mom, as a joke, the more you see your life as a work of fiction, you’ll see you have plenty of interesting experiences. She answered: someone finally gets me.”
Translated by María Suárez