Elena Dorfman, a fine art photographer based in Los Angeles, is known for her intensive portrait series that examine the myriad subcultures that color North America and elsewhere. Dorfman’s highly refined pictures combine searing beauty with atypical subject matter and turn the “documentary” tradition on its head. Identity-sexual, social or cultural-is a root element of her work, a continuing theme being the blurred lines that separate fantasy and reality. Still Lovers, a body of work that brought Dorfman international acclaim, focuses on the domestic lives of men and women who devote themselves to life-size, anatomically correct sex dolls. Dorfman’s intent is not to exploit the obvious deviancy of these sexual surrogates, but rather to reveal the fascinating secret world of intimacy between flesh and silicone.
Elena Dorfman’s 2007 series, Fandomania: Characters & Cosplay, explored the world of costume play-a pop-cultural phenomenon exported from Japan. The subjects in this series are extreme fans who frequent conventions worldwide, and who dress up and live as characters from video games, Japanese manga, and anime. A book of the same title has been published by Aperture.
The Pleasure Park, Elena Dorfman’s most recent body of work, is a comprehensive look at the world of thoroughbred horse racing and jockeys. Dorfman has created a 5-minute panoramic film that both reconstructs a horse race and explores the milieu of the track. As companion pieces, Dorfman produced a 1-hour video that gazes quietly at jockeys, revealing both their power and vulnerability. Photographic portraits of racehorses in a studio setting present the formidable and sinewy animals off the track, deprived of visual cues. Although the ritual and pageantry of the race are alluded to in the accoutrement represented, the animals are suspended in motion, removed from the culture of commodity and winning at any cost. The intent behind The Pleasure Park is to capture the poise and resilience of the fleeting animal in space while placing the spectator directly in the racing environment, creating an overwhelming sensation of the beauty of the physical form and sheer force of these athletes.
