John Coplans: Bodyparts, Portraits

John Coplans was born in London in 1920. He moved to America in 1960 where he has lived ever since, moving from New York to San Francisco. He has had a very varied career including years spent as a teacher, painter, exhibition curator, museum director, art critic and writer, later becoming interested in photography for which he is now most renowned. It wasn't until 1984, at an age where most expected him to retire, that he embarked upon his series of self-portraits. In these pictures, which are enlarged to gigantic proportions, he refuses to flatter his own naked image with nothing corrected or beautified. He highlights every crack, discolouration, hair, unevenness of the skin and fold of fat of his age-distorted body against a neutral background giving an impression of profound humanity. These are not self-portraits in the traditional sense. The head is always excluded and the pictures instead appear without gender and with a universal applicability.

Pressetext

John Coplans: Bodyparts, Portraits
Hafnarhus