Bodywork 

Thoroughly bored by it. How can one be bored by the body? The text of 'The Body' (Thames & Hudson $16.95) is well-informed and workman-like. If y ou know nothing about the history of nu de photography, this will make a valuable reference book. What makes this book good, though, is the choice of photographs; there are some stunners. Yves Trémorin's photographs of her ageing mother (above) transform wrinkled flesh into 5Omething resembling weathered sandstone; Philip Trager's photograph of the shaven-headed dancer, Marika Blossfeldt, make her look like a crazed android, while John Coplans reveals that his bulbous torso resembles a face. Y ou won't be able to take your eyes off the section devoted to 'Estrangement' which includes photographs of a Chinese woman's bound foot, a child with four legs, a torso with none, a woman with elephantiasls, a crucified man and a man so fat that his flesh flows over his outsize bed IIke a pool of melting butter. Overall, the inclusion of so many male nudes, 50 many women photographers and 50 many artists is exceptional, while the chapter devoted to 'Polltics', introducing the polltics of representatlon, Includes Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Carolee Schneemann and Annie Sprinkle. Thank heavens for a book that approaches the subject intelligenty. Plty, thougll, about the pertunetory wrltlng and the absence of  Info on Indivldual photographers. Sarah Kent