Réplica
Experimental Gallery, Cornell University
14-18 November, 2022
Photographic prints in silver gelatin
replico avi, atus, are,
1. to fold back, unfold, turn or bend back, unroll, open: ut ne replices annalium memoriam (Cic. sul. 27), i. e. reveal,
2. in partic., to turn over and over in the mind, to think or reflect upon; to go over, repeat,
3. in jurid. and late latin, to make a reply or replication
(Adapted from Charlton T. Lewis & Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, 1879)
This ongoing portraiture series was born after my discovery of German photographer Michael Schmidt’s exhibition "Frauen", which he presented in the Hannover Expo 2000. Fascinated by Schmidt's photographic and exhibitional formality, I also interpreted that his series had certain limitations in terms of an overnormative representation of women; I therefore decided to "reshoot" it, appropriating from Schmidt's visual language in a different thematic context. Here I invited close friends to sit for me and allow me to photograph sensitive aspects of their own self-image, whether it be a bad nose angle or a regrettable tattoo to scoliosis, nudity or ample camera-phobia — an attempt to work themes closer to my own heart such as the representation of friendship and intimacy, or the therapeutic potential of the photographing and being photographed.