Helga Sommerfeld en cuatro viejos papeles (Helga Sommerfeld in four old papers)
Installation, Portrait, 10x21cm
Wrinkles on magazine paper
4 pieces. 10 x 21 cm each one
(Please, for more information and photos visit my web-site: www.maurovallejo.com)
Helga Sommerfeld is a German actress born in Dresden in 1941. In the nineteen-sixties and seventies she worked in adventure films and comedies and attained some success with some of them. In total she appeared in thirty-five feature films and acted in the theatre on numerous occasions. She died in the year 1991 in Berlin at only fifty years old.
This work shows four stills from different times in her career. The photos were taken from a 1960 magazine and show her elegant face in the foreground, modified according to the demands of the sc<x>ript at any given time by makeup and characterisation.
Starting from this premise of change and transformation (physical and/or mental) that any actor must undertake when taking on a character during the shooting of a film, my intention was to add a follow-up mutation to these faces that were, as stated, already transformed in themselves.
Taking into account Miss Sommerfeld's early death, the action consisted of making in the four papers of the photos a series of manual wrinkle-like folds that cover only the entirety of the actress's faces, thus making them “age”.
In this way I sought to establish a connection between a set of real biographical details and what would be a later logical and fictitious continuation, playing with the actual nature of the vehicle (paper), time and the history of the actress who, had she lived, would now be seventy years old.
The principal objective is, as in many of my works, to comb the possibilities of any “given” image, revising and re-signifying its content, using the process as an expressive medium and at the same time as a point of reflection.
Also very much present is the multiple and occasionally conflicting use of terms. Here, for example, the “new” idiosyncrasy granted to the images is what has made them “old”. This is why, when looking at them, one is struck by a certain sensation of strangeness; despite the numerous folds that cover the actress's face, one can still appreciate her beautiful features, something that generates a “visual conflict” as one is not quite sure what is wrinkled, whether the paper because it is old or the actual face of the actress who has grown old …
4 pieces. 10 x 21 cm each one
(Please, for more information and photos visit my web-site: www.maurovallejo.com)
Helga Sommerfeld is a German actress born in Dresden in 1941. In the nineteen-sixties and seventies she worked in adventure films and comedies and attained some success with some of them. In total she appeared in thirty-five feature films and acted in the theatre on numerous occasions. She died in the year 1991 in Berlin at only fifty years old.
This work shows four stills from different times in her career. The photos were taken from a 1960 magazine and show her elegant face in the foreground, modified according to the demands of the sc<x>ript at any given time by makeup and characterisation.
Starting from this premise of change and transformation (physical and/or mental) that any actor must undertake when taking on a character during the shooting of a film, my intention was to add a follow-up mutation to these faces that were, as stated, already transformed in themselves.
Taking into account Miss Sommerfeld's early death, the action consisted of making in the four papers of the photos a series of manual wrinkle-like folds that cover only the entirety of the actress's faces, thus making them “age”.
In this way I sought to establish a connection between a set of real biographical details and what would be a later logical and fictitious continuation, playing with the actual nature of the vehicle (paper), time and the history of the actress who, had she lived, would now be seventy years old.
The principal objective is, as in many of my works, to comb the possibilities of any “given” image, revising and re-signifying its content, using the process as an expressive medium and at the same time as a point of reflection.
Also very much present is the multiple and occasionally conflicting use of terms. Here, for example, the “new” idiosyncrasy granted to the images is what has made them “old”. This is why, when looking at them, one is struck by a certain sensation of strangeness; despite the numerous folds that cover the actress's face, one can still appreciate her beautiful features, something that generates a “visual conflict” as one is not quite sure what is wrinkled, whether the paper because it is old or the actual face of the actress who has grown old …
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