In pictures: An insider’s portrait of strip club culture

“When I was 16, I snuck into a strip club in LA with my friends using a fake ID and I was so intrigued by the dancers,” remembers Alexis Kleshik. “That moment stayed with me. From then on, dancing quietly lived in the back of my mind.” When Kleshik eventually moved to New York to go to art school, she turned to stripping; at first to make quick cash, but over time, using her own experience and relationships to make art. When she wasn’t on the floor performing, she’d be at the club with her camera, making portraits with the other girls between their sets or in the dancers’ locker room. The result, Grand St Strippers, is a merging of worlds unravelling ideas around desire, beauty, creativity and autonomy and what it takes to live life in service of fantasy.

“I wanted to push back against two of the most persistent stereotypes about sex work and strip club culture: the hypersexualised fantasy that flattens performers into caricatures, and the victimhood frame,” Kleshik tells me over the phone. “Typically, images of dancers portray them as tired, defeated, or trapped, as if that’s the only story worth telling. While there is always a larger dynamic at play, my work is about the dancer’s agency. Like me, many of the dancers are creatives doing exciting projects in fashion, photography, writing, dancing, and music. The project is about acknowledging the labour of sex work while also centring the performer’s strength, self-possession, and creativity.”

I wanted to push back against two of the most persistent stereotypes about sex work and strip club culture: the hypersexualised fantasy that flattens performers into caricatures, and the victimhood frame – Alexis Kleshik

Strip club culture is often still rooted in a heterosexist norm, one that revolves around conforming to men’s fantasies, which are frequently disconnected from reality and tied to narrow beauty standards; typically skinny, white and hyper-feminine. The club where Kleshik works – which she prefers to keep anonymous – is one of the few spaces in New York where dancers of all genders and sexual orientations are embraced. “There’s no one ‘type’ of performer here, and that inclusivity changes everything. For the performers, it creates a sense of belonging and freedom; you’re not being asked to fit into a narrow mould so that you can bring your own personality to the stage. For the audience, it makes the experience feel more real, more human, and more connected. It’s less about a curated fantasy that only exists for a certain clientele, and more about an exchange between people who are comfortable with themselves.”

The series blends staged images shot exclusively inside the club – documenting the texture and intimacy of the environment and what it feels like to inhabit that space – and portraits of the dancers shot outside in Brooklyn. This combination pulls the dancers into unexpected contexts, creating a dialogue between their inner and outer worlds that is uncensored and expansive. Together, Kleshik and her collaborators were able to highlight aspects of their identities and stories that don’t always emerge in candid moments on the floor. “It was a mutual process; ideas went back and forth, and the dancers shaped the imagery as much as I did. The staged approach allowed us to create images that reflected both reality and imagination, holding space for the dancers’ own visions of themselves while reflecting the complex realities of this profession.”

Being on both sides, behind the camera and on the floor, allowed me to understand the nuances of the work, the unspoken rhythms, and the moments that an outsider might overlook – Alexis Kleshik

Kleshik’s photographs are full of contrasts: glamour and grit, intimacy and exhibitionism, the staged and the spontaneous. Tightly composed and lit with stark flash, she creates a visual world where the desire, joy and absurdity of performance can thrive, while still being honest about the context of the work. While the project is first and foremost rooted in the artist’s own experiences, as well as the dancers she collaborates with, Kleshik sees the work in conversation with other artists and thinkers, including Sophia Giovannitti and Susan Meiselas. In her book Working Girl, Giovannitti, who is also a dancer, proposes the unlikely parallels between the worlds of art and sex work and how commodification impacts desire.

Likewise, Susan Meiselas’s Carnival Strippers – a photo essay which later became a seminal book –  followed women who performed in travelling ‘girl shows’ in the United States from 1972 to 1975, interrogating gender politics and self-representation. At the time, the project was recognised as a pioneering example of shared authorship, defined as much by the testimonies of the women involved as the photographs Meiselas took of them. In Grand St Strippers, Kleshik goes one step further, cultivating a sense of intimacy between photographer and subject that is so strong the distinction doesn’t hold.

“I wouldn’t have been able to make these images without the foundation of my own lived experience inside the club. Meiselas taught me the power of empathy and immersion. Spending time in the environment until trust was real was the only way layered narratives could emerge.” Kleshik credits her dual perspective for uniquely positioning her to unravel layered narratives that were rooted in curiosity rather than preconceived ideas. “Being on both sides, behind the camera and on the floor, allowed me to understand the nuances of the work, the unspoken rhythms, and the moments that an outsider might overlook. I walked into this project with questions and an open mind; a desire to tell a different story from the one the outside world feeds us.”

Visit the gallery above for a closer look.