Max Eicke is a photographer born and raised in Southern Germany. He received his MFA in photography from Hochschule für bildende Künste (HFBK) in Hamburg. His work deals with desire, social relationships, and power dynamics, fixing a gaze that explores human agency, taboos, and the photographic in equal turns.
Max’s sincere and personal language is carried through into his editorial work and can be seen in publications such as Stern, Vice, Berliner Zeitung, and Camera Austria. His first book DOMINAS was published by Kehrer Verlag and he has exhibited work in Germany and internationally. Eicke currently lives and works in Berlin.
KT: How did you get into photography?
ME: The camera became some salvation as it enabled me to get in touch with the hidden and unfamiliar. Originally, I wanted to become a detective, then, I got interested in philosophy and politics, in the end, I found myself studying photography. So it goes as Kurt Vonnegut liked to say.
KT: In 2016, you published a book ‘Dominas‘. What do you like about photography in a book-format?
ME: From a very early stage onwards, this project turned out to be well made for the book-format. Considering the photo-book as a medium itself, it still thrills me how you can manage complex narratives within this format. Having gathered photographs, text and found footage for ‘Dominas,’ it was simply the best way to combine all of those layers. On top, I think that graphic design plays a crucial role by balancing out the importance of text and images.
KT: Your project deals with the society stereotypes about women in the world of ‘Dominatrix’. What got you interested?
ME: After I had stumbled upon this parallel world by reading an autobiography of a female literature student who started to work as a dominatrix, I got interested in looking at this universe in a more documentary and observatory way than the usual freak-show like features.
Looking at our society through the eyes of sex-workers in the BDSM and fetish community became interesting to me as I believe that it says a lot about the condition of our society and how we deal with sexuality. There were a lot of questions: What is a mask? What is real? How much veracity is there in the way the women present themselves – beyond glaring red lips and a stern gaze?
In my eyes, a statement of one of the dominatrixes sums it up quite perfectly: “Strength means being able to stand up and say, I am not a stereotype. I am myself. And this is something that I wish for everyone.”
