'The depiction of the human body fascinates me from the very moment where representation transforms and abstracts it: we therefore no longer see a person, but more a type, an object – a person without personal characteristics, almost flat in appearance. In my work I research the treatment of the human body as a kind of material. My question is thus at which point does one recognize a person and when does an individual turn into an object, a shade, a trace – when does the significance change.”

-Ozlem Altin in conversation with Christiane Rekade
Mousse Magazine, No. 23, March 2010

This book is published on the occasion of the exhibition Geometric Portrait at Museum voor Moderne Kunst in Arnhem, Netherlands. An image of a bourgeoisie woman riding on horseback with her male escort is just that, as the woman’s veiled summer hat completely obscures her face and head, transforming them into a kind of explosive diamond. Assembled from Altin’s large collections of photographs and images, as well images she herself has made, this book is a compendium of the body as radically passive. Altin asks, “How can one stage a person with a minimum of presence?” Through neglect, absent-mindedness, or coercion, her subjects seem to have abdicated all affect, to have withdrawn any flicker of self from our gaze.

Reference https://printedmatter.org/catalog/29886 , 12/10/2015.

-AH