Love... Hate... Nature.
The first book by New York photographer Jeremy Kost (b. 1977, Corpus Christi, Texas), Love... Hate... Nature. is an intimate Polaroid study of the model Max Emerson, published by the International Center of Photography in 2009 in a signed, numbered edition of just 150 copies.
Across 62 color plates printed recto only, Kost follows Emerson and a stuffed tiger through a voyeuristic, erotically charged romp, embracing the technical restrictions of the obsolescent Polaroid camera — uneven luminosity, fuzzy contours, and the disarming promise of an immediately tangible picture. The softbound volume, issued in conjunction with Dress Codes, the Third ICP Triennial of Photography and Video (2009–2010), carries a tipped-in original inkjet print in Polaroid format, signed by the artist, in each of its 150 numbered copies and 25 artist's proofs.
Kost is known as New York's Polaroid artist, extending the instant-film portrait tradition of Warhol and Hockney into the city's queer nightlife with images of drag performers, go-go boys, and downtown personalities. This debut anticipates the later monographs It's Always Darkest Before Dawn, Fractured, and Isolated but Not Alone, in which single frames give way to sprawling Polaroid composites.