Richard Kern has never been one to conform. The filmmaker, photographer, and provocateur's work has been exhibited at MoMA and the Whitney, featured in Purple and The Face, and compiled into twenty-eight books. His photographs have served as a mirror, exposing the underbelly of desire and the contradictions that come with it. But over time, the reception of his work has evolved. What once provoked outrage has been absorbed into the cultural mainstream. The shock has faded, the controversy repackaged. What was subversive has now become strategic.

This year, Kern revisited one of his most infamous series, New York Girls, first published in 1995, with New York Girls Now, a collection of original photographs in Polaroid form taken between 2022 and 2024. The images will be exhibited this month at At The Above in Melbourne, alongside the launch of a limited-edition hardcover book. The show seeks to re-contextualise his signature aesthetic for the present, exploring the evolving relationship between voyeurism, power and perception.

Since his start in 1980s, Kern’s work has always challenged the notion of truth and objectivity in photography, exposing the inherent contradictions within these ideas. Through his lens, he interrogates how sexuality is categorised, questioning the distinctions between what is considered perverse and what is deemed pleasurable. His images blur the line between art and exploitation, leaving the viewer to grapple with their own interpretations. Rather than offering clear resolutions, the images draw us into a space where we are no longer observers but active onlookers.

Kern’s work has been scrutinised and dissected for decades, oscillating between censorship and acclaim, condemnation and re-evaluation. His images have been banned, defended and endlessly debated, yet they persist—always returning to the cultural conversation in new contexts. Even today, New York Girls occupies an ambiguous space, ranking modestly at #2,180 in Erotic Photography Books on Amazon, while his short film Face to Panty Ratio, featuring music by Thurston Moore, finds itself buried among clickbait titles on Xvideos. Kern, however, remains indifferent to the discourse that surrounds his work. Unmoved by controversy or critique, he responds to moral panic and academic theorising with his signature detachment. “Well, that’s your deal,” he’s known to say, deflecting any attempt to pin down meaning or intent.

With New York Girls Now, Kern exhumes and reimagines one of his most infamous bodies of work, bringing it into the present moment with a renewed perspective. In collaboration with No Agency, the series introduces 27 new women, each framed within the same contorted expressions of so-called “perversions,” yet viewed through a slightly altered lens. The hallmarks of Kern’s photography still remain—guns, nudity, cigarettes, and candle wax—persistent motifs that tether the series to its predecessor.

In the revisited series, the high-key dramatics and stark stylization of the 1990s are gone. Instead, the images are rendered in natural light—unfiltered, uninterrupted, and “realer than real.” The voyeurism remains, but now it carries an air of inevitability. Watching is no longer passive, nor is it one-sided. The gaze is omnipresent, and everyone is aware of it—the models, the viewers, and Kern himself.

A limited-edition, signed 102-page hardcover book will be available alongside the New York Girls Now exhibition, featuring original Polaroids from the series. The exhibition opens on March 21 from 6 PM to 9 PM and will run from March 21 to April 13 at At The Above, located at L1 198 Gertrude St, Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia.