PORNOLAND
STEFANO DE LUIGI
A land where sex is simulated, evoked, glorified, supercharged in the extreme, a land where everything is about the body, in its possible and perverse combinations.... This is Pornoland, a strange, parallel world where pornographic films are churned out on a daily basis.
The photographs of Stefano De Luigi and the text by Martin Amis that accompanies them are the guides through this land, filled with actors capable of extraordinary performances (although not the kind that would ever win Oscars), directors who can make an entire film in just one day, improvised sets, almost non-existant plots and locations that stay exactly the same from one film to
the next.
The journey visits Milan, Berlin, Budapest, Prague, Tokyo, Dortmund and Los Angeles. It includes no moralizing, hasty judgements or yearnings for redemption. Stefano De Luigi's images and Martin Amis's words use humour, respect and irony to tell the story of a rarely-glimpsed world of crude colours and harsh brutality, bodily contortions and bursts of laughter, unexpected tenderness and situations on the very edge of
the absurd.
Stefano De Luigi has been a photojournalist since 1988, working in his native Italy and all over the world. His principal projects have included work on the world of television in six different countries, the fashion business and long-term projects with Médecins Sans Frontières and CBM.
Martin Amis is one of the most acclaimed novelists of our times. His books include Einstein's Monsters, London Fields, Time's Arrow, The Information, Koba the Dread, Experience and Yellow Dog.
