Nadel­streifen – Pinstripe

Loredana Nemes

For her series Pinstripes (2016), Loredana Nemes took portraits of bank employees working in Frankfurt/Main. Bankers are powerful; for years now their reputation has been in tatters, and they are, without exception, men, at least in the top positions.

Nemes’s point of departure is the professional uniform, the suit: an article of clothing for the man who does not perform physical labour. A shell that becomes a new architecture, a keeper of secrets, a straightjacket, a headscarf. The haptic quality of fine fabric calls to be touched, the satin inner linings caress soft men’s faces.

It’s a game with images that pose questions and suspend the sexes, that turn familiar things upside-down and call for new ways of viewing things. In a dialogue with the men portrayed, everything seems possible: a limitless game, an escape from the rhythm of the everyday, a longing for adventure, for an image that reveals things unseen.