Matt Saunders, from the series "Udo", 2004
Deutsche
Bank Collection
When he appropriates
photos of actors like Charlotte
Rampling or Matti
Pellonpää, Matt
Saunders develops a relationship to his motifs that is as intimate as
Sara Gilbert's. He removes them from their original context, works over
them in a series of steps, and transfers them into paintings, drawings,
videos. An example is Udo, shown in Freeway Balconies. The
video is based on over 600 individually drawn images of Udo
Kier's face.
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With his tender approach to appropriation, the artist
questions the mechanisms of contemporary image production, although
Saunders is quite clear that the divide separating the fan and the star
can never be bridged. This feeling also arises with a photo by Karen
Kilimnik titled Me as Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet Before
Horse Race. The artist photographed herself and then, clumsily drawn
in black felt pen, colored the print with eye shadow and hair in the style
of the Hollywood
diva. Obviously, a corporeal closeness to the idol is meant to fail
here.
Collier
Schorr,
She Loves You, She Loves
Everybody (Brooke Shields), 2008
Courtesy
the artist
Basically, as a classical
portrait photographer, Collier Schorr is the only one in Freeway
Balconies who succeeds in momentarily breaking through the boundary
between appearance and reality to penetrate the space behind the media
image. She achieves this in a picture she took of Brooke
Shields. The aged child star is lying on the floor in a white tank
top; her hair is tied tightly behind her head. Shields is reported to have
said that she can detect her real, or at least potential self in the
portrait. This is a truly rare occurrence; in a time when lifestyles have
become manifold and people are increasingly exploring the liberating
effects of a conscious and continuous change of roles, the definition of
one's own personal identity has not necessarily become any easier.
Translation:
Andrea Scrima
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