IDEA - Steven Klein Private Collection
PRIVATE COLLECTION by Steven Klein is a limited-edition four-volume box set bringing together a body of work that explores identity, sexuality, voyeurism, violence, and the aesthetics of control.
Across Cut Throats, Dildos, Death Kit, and Photo Booth, Klein moves between staged scenes, stark still lifes, fictional crime scenes, and intimate self-portraits. Together, the four books form an enigmatic archive of images that feel private, fragmented, and deliberately unresolved.
1. CUT THROATS
A series of cinematic film stills set within domestic suburban spaces. Young men appear with their throats violently cut, transforming the traditional portrait into a scene of rupture and exposure. The images blur the boundaries between life and death, violence and voyeurism, using the body as a metaphor for cultural decay and personal vulnerability.
2. DILDOS
A stark sequence of still lifes focusing on sculptural forms photographed in isolation. Gripped, held, and suspended, the objects are rendered with clinical precision, creating a study in form, tension, and erotic abstraction.
3. DEATH KIT
A fictional crime scene reconstructed through photographic fragments. Garments, objects, and traces are documented using iPhone 8 images, dye-sublimation prints, and scanned materials. The resulting dossier suggests an investigation into a feminine death, while deliberately withholding any definitive narrative or conclusion.
4. PHOTO BOOTH
A series of self-portraits made by Klein in 2011 using early desktop camera software. Captured at a transitional point between the analogue photo booth and the rise of the selfie, the images explore self-surveillance, performance, and the changing nature of self-image. Both diaristic and critical, the series places Klein himself within the tradition of photographic portraiture.
Presented together, the four volumes reveal the breadth of Klein’s photographic language - cinematic, confrontational, intimate, and often unsettling. PRIVATE COLLECTION is less a collection of stories than an accumulation of fragments, inviting repeated looking rather than straightforward interpretation.
Details: Archival box with gloss sticker · 4 softcover books · 21 × 28 cm · 104 / 60 / 112 / 88 pages · Edition of 1,000 copies