Kostis Fokas
Kostis Fokas: Boys With Feelings
Details
Boys With Feelings by noted Greek photographer Kostis Fokas.
80 pages
2025
270mm × 220mm
Hardcover
Published by Hyper Hypo
Though his work has been published widely in magazines and exhibited in galleries across Europe and the US, this is his first solo book. Fokas’s work always focuses on the human form, and in Boys With Feelings specifically on the nude male body. The balletic, sometimes acrobatic, twisted and intertwined bodies of his subjects interact with each other, with themselves and with the viewer in a singular expressive manner. These are not just the usual nude photos.
The models remain faceless, save for the inclusion of a few solitary eyes gazing directly at the camera. Their bodies transformed into landscapes — into abstracted mases. Arms become legs, torsos merge into themselves, hands grasp mounds of flesh, desexualizing what could otherwise be considered simply erotic images.
How many bodies are in this photo? Where does the one model end and where does the other begin? In a world sadly accustomed to more and more alienation and isolation, Fokas’s images celebrate the pure joy and beauty of human connection and touch. His playful yet formal approach allows the viewer to share in the intimacy of every moment he captures without the constraints of patriarchal shame and digital detachment. Fokas aims his lens at the body as a site of desire, fantasy, submission and memory.
In his own words: “This project emerged from loneliness, but within that solitude I began to hear myself more clearly. It marks my journey into adulthood — perhaps a bit late, but nevertheless deeply felt.”
Kostis Fokas (Athens, 1979), is a conceptual photographer whose practice centers on the exploration and the complexities of the human body. Fokas’s work has been exhibited in the US and Europe including at the Louvre Museum, Colette, Art Basel Miami, the Benaki Museum, and MOMus Museum of Modern Art Thessaloniki, among others. Fokas has collaborated with and published his work in Zeit Magazine, Les Inrockuptibles, L’obs, i-D, Dazed, The Advocate, Gay Times, Gayletter and other international publications and websites.
Kostis Fokas
Fokas has collaborated with and published his work in Zeit Magazine, Les Inrockuptibles,L’obs , i-D, Dazed and Confused, The advocate, Gay times, Gayletter magazine and many more international publications, websites and art books. His work looks at and investigates the complexities of gender, sexuality, and identity through pictorial representations of the human body. In an attempt to capture the social panorama of contemporary life, the artist offers a discreet look at the body as a site of desire, fantasy, submission, and oppression. Unlike sentimental depictions or explicit narratives where sexuality and desire have been co-opted to fit in the broad swath of social and public life, Fokas’ approach to the body is rather detached. Like a Cartesian mechanical eye, Fokas observes from the position of the spectator, scrutinizing himself and his subjects with a tantalizing pleasure. Bodies and fragmentary body parts set in bizarre and vulnerable positions are juxtaposed with wild landscapes and the striking beauty of the Greek summer.
