Carnal Knowledge (Violette Editions) is the first collection of Marder's works in print. A seminal early experience for Malerie Marder was when a family friend invited her to photograph her with her lover, naked and in the anonymous setting of a motel room. This set the tone for Marder's work for the next decade. Her photographs of nudes are composed simply, her subjects sitting plainly near the centre of the frame, often set against the bleak anonymity of motel rooms, their impassive gazes almost daring a viewer to interpret their bodies. Beautifully illustrated with more than 70 works by Marder – described by Charlotte Cotton in her introduction as an ‘episodic drama of adjacencies’ – Carnal Knowledge also contains a preface by Gregory Crewdson, a text by novelist James Ellroy, short stories inspired by Marder's works by A. M. Homes, James Frey and Bruce Wagner, as well as a written and photographic correspondence between Marder and Philip-Lorca diCorcia.
