Collection

The Lucky Tiger series is one of Nakadate’s most important photo-projects. It contains photographs of the artist posing in typical American provincial scenery, their style modelled on soft porn aesthetics. The artist showed prints of the pictures to male strangers, who were asked to examine them closely after she had dipped their fingers in black ink. In so doing, Nakadate was making a symbolic trade: allowing an act of voyeurism in exchange for the fingerprints of the men gloating lustily over the pictures. The artist breaks away from feminist art clichés while simultaneously borrowing its traditions, filtered through the American road movie experience, the erotica industry, and myths of conquering the New World. Another example is the disturbing video work I Want to Be the One to Walk in the Sun, which documents her parasexual adventures with strangers. As in Lucky Tiger, Nakadate plays an objectifying game with men she meets, and makes them co-author works of art at the same time.