Dark & Fetish Art

This book will take you on wild ventures of the imagination. Also, gorgeously produced.

If you're faint of heart or don't like the more "fetish" side of life, or think anything with a closed mind, this is NOT the art book for you.HOWEVER, if you love this sort of deeply, murkyish, beautiful, sensual art, BUY THIS BOOK! It's awesome. I even bought a copy for my friend. Stunning photography, with just a bevy of eclectic artwork by some truly wondrous artists.Love, love, love!

The third title of the “Erotica in Contemporary Art" series is dedicated to dark and fetish artists around the world and not only Japanese artists like the former two books. Although there are a couple of Japanese artists included in this title, most of the artists featured in the book are from Europe and North America.The book is divided in several categories with diferent styles and mediums, like traditional painting, digital painting, sculpture, doll making, photography...to name a few. Some of the artworks shown here are by recognized artists (James Jean, Ray Caesar, Nicoletta Ceccoli, Alessandro Sicioldr, Zdzisław Beksínski...as example) and others by not so well known artists.The quality of the printing is very nice (at least in my copy) and most of the images are full sized. Overall, a great acquisition if you like dark art and fetish fantasy!

Although this book includes artists from around the world, many of them have some connection to Japan. This is not surprising, not only because Unno is Japanese, but because seems to be a major center for dark or “Goth” fantasy art. The text is in Japanese as well, but short biographies of the artists appear in English (albeit in tiny type that I found hard to read).The book is divided into Dark Art, Fetish Art, Art Photography, and Three-Dimensional Art. Unno defines the difference between the first two by writing, “’Dark’ is oriented to the invisible, ‘Fetish’ to what can be seen,” but I couldn’t see much difference; fantasy and surrealism abound throughout.It is interesting to view this book along with The Art of Decadence, also edited by Unno, which displays art by Symbolists and other groups in the second half of the 19th century that he claims—correctly, I think—as the ancestor of today’s dark fantasy art. The old and new artists, as represented in these books, certainly share an obsession with young, beautiful women, often portrayed with exaggeratedly sexualized (or “erotic,” if you prefer) body features and poses—but I expect that some of the modern stuff would make even the “decadents” blush. Not only is nudity almost omnipresent, but there is bondage aplenty, plus some new wrinkles like combining sexualized adult women’s bodies with the faces of little girls. If any of that bothers you, you definitely should avoid this book.At the same time, there is a lot of beauty here. For instance, a number of the artists blend women’s faces or figures with plant and animal forms, uniting humanity with nature. Many of the pictures, like those of the Symbolist era, also present alluring combinations of women and images of Death (skulls, blood, etc.). I think that lovers of fantasy/surreal art with a taste for the macabre and bizarre will find a lot to enjoy in this collection.

Stunning and well worth the money. Beautifully printed.This book has numerous styles of exquisite art that features imaginative fetishes. Sensitive readers should note that some of the images are dark, unusual, and may be triggering. This is not a book with just pretty pictures of salacious activities; it can be startling at times.Each artist is given a short introduction about their style that gives some insight about why they create the images, followed by several quality images. This creates context and added to the experience for me.The styles are varied so you can enjoy it in several sittings sequentially or randomly choose a page to enjoy a different experience each time.

Indispensable pour les amateurs du genre. Bonne qualité papier, bon rendu des œuvres.

just wasn't what i expected ...there wasn't anything dark in there mostly weird art ( fetish) done by the most popular graphic designers for big company's its mostly stuff you've seen around nothing to fancy feels really abstract and modern ..paper used for the cover is easily affected (warped) by humidity / water ..cant even leave it in the bathroom where it belong a shame .