Show
Opening October 2, 2026
A Photographers Place, Raleigh
Photograph: Henry Horenstein
Artist Statement
In 2001, I wandered into the Shim-Sham Club in New Orleans, and caught the first annual Tease-O-Rama event. Little did I know then that this was a watershed moment for the neo-burlesque movement- in a sense, where it all began. I shot a few roles of film including pictures of the legendary Dita Von Teese and Catherine D’Lish, and started going to shows and shooting casually. One thing led to another, as so often happens in photography, and Show was born.
To me, modern burlesque performers embody so many traits of true artists. They are creative and driven and determined to serve up their vision of the world in song, dance, humor, and narrative. They like being different from everyone else. In fact, they wear that difference with pride. Their style and method of delivery make burlesque popular art- not so much for the elite Art in America crowd. But that doesn’t make it any less artful. Living in the margins, the best of today’s burlesque artists have a signature vision, strong in message and execution. In my view, the same goes for performers working in drag, fetish, and sideshow/circus.
I shot many pictures in Show with color film, but I think black and white is more timeless. It also seems well suited to my subject. Noir. Older. Today, almost all photographers work in color, which to me is reason enough to stick to black and white.
Henry Horenstein is an American artist, photographer, filmmaker and educator. He is the author of over 40 books, including a series of instructional textbooks.
He studied history at the University of Chicago and earned his BFA and MFA at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he is now professor of photography. He has worked as a professional photographer, filmmaker, teacher, and author since the early 1970s. He was also an Honored Educator with the Society for Photographic Education in 2013.
Honky Tonk: Portraits of Country Music (2003) is a documentary survey of country music during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Honky Tonk has also been presented as an exhibition at many public and private museums and galleries, notably the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in 2006, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum in 2005, and The Annenberg Space for Photography in 2014.
In recent years, Horenstein has been working on short documentary films. His films include Murray (2010), with William A. Anderson and Hillary Spera; Spoke (2014), a celebration of the Austin, Texas, dance hall, the Broken Spoke, which was funded by The Annenberg Space for Photography and screened at the Austin Film Festival; Partners (2018), which premiered in May 2018 at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts; and Blitto Underground (2021), about bohemian Buenos Aires, which premiered at the International Film Festival in Buenos Aires, the Paris Independent Film Festival, and the Berlin International Art Film Festival. His film about Cajun Louisiana, called Marksville, LA, is scheduled for a 2027 release as well as Preacher, a short film on boogie-woogie piano player Preacher Jack.
Photo: Richard Renaldi