From Miss Rosen’s article for AnOther Magazine:
Rather than conform to strictures of heteronormative society, Badertscher forged his own path outside of the establishment. With the stated aim of “breaking all the rules of documentary photography,” he created shared moments of intimacy with people who had been abandoned and shut out, giving them a space to be both seen and heard. In the 1995 catalogue for his solo exhibition at Duke University Museum of Art, Badertscher wrote, “There must have been something dangerously lacking in my upper-middle-class psyche because I did not find nudity, even youthful male nudity, shocking, abusive, emasculating, pornographic or subversive. To photograph the naked body is for me the ultimate dimension in photographing the person.”
At its core, Badertscher’s work contains another layer waiting to be seen and explored, endlessly containing another, inner truth like a Russian nesting doll. Everything is straightforward and direct, but that doesn’t make it any less complex. Neither insider nor outsider, Badertscher stood in the gap, using photography to extend the moment into the world, and allowing the images and stories to speak for themselves