One of my top connections made last year was with Circa Press, some of whom’s magnificent erotic art books are available from Dirty Sexy Words right now. I have always liked having a selection of picture books, whether photographic or illustrated, but over the years it has been getting a bit difficult to secure a regular supply at manageable prices. Sure, printing costs, especially for lots of colour prints within a book, and anything arty tends to need higher-grade paper as well, but a problem since the late OOs has been the disappearance of those outfits that used to be a reliable source of art stuff, which meant, for this bookseller, crossing my fingers a lot over eBay auctions.
They are currently crowdfunding a new book by Alejandra Guerrero, to be called Auto Erotica. Some of you may remember – or indeed have already bought – her previous work, Wicked Women.
Auto Erotica is about girls and cars: to quote from the crowdfunder.
Alejandra Guerrero is a photographer whose work offers a unique vision of female-empowered eroticism. Raised in Bogotá, Colombia, she grew up against a backdrop of sleek automobiles. As a child she would sit in the driver’s seat of her mother’s Mercedes and dream of one day being in control of such an elegant machine. Her father was a mechanical engineer whose hobby was restoring cool cars, and she would watch him at work, taking in the details of fins and fenders. It sparked a fascination, which became an adult passion, which eventually inspired an entire body of work.
Guerrero’s artistic inclinations were manifested early on, first in drawing and painting, and making clothes for her dolls, then in her final year of school in life classes. She enrolled in an industrial design/fine arts course at Los Andes University in Colombia, then in 1999 she decided to take a break and moved to Chicago, where she took a job in a photo lab. Recognising that she had found her path, she transferred to the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) to study photography. Her erotic work began in 2003, when as part of a Chicago artist’s organisation called Fluxcore, two of her photographs were included in a show about sex and technology called Turn On. She currently lives and works in Chicago.
AUTO EROTICA is Guerrero’s second monograph with Circa and follows WICKED WOMEN down the same electrifying road.
‘Cars are in my bloodstream – I love them as objects of desire and adventure. I’ve owned many cars and made countless road trips, and always get a kick from being behind the wheel.’ – Alejandra Guerrero
You can order yourself a special edition here