EVENT

‘Corpus’ is a contemporary representation of the human body, reflected by six international artists. The body has figured prominently in the creative expression of nearly all cultures from the beginning of civilization. Through art, the body becomes a site for defining individual identity and experimenting with the nature of representation itself, sometimes with the artists using their own bodies in their creative process.

Featured artists: Roger Weiss (Switzerland), Nicolas Senegas (France), Cristina Troufa (Portugal), David Cata (Spain), Jörg Heidenberger (Germany), Marwane Pallas (France).

Exhibition curated by Holly and Patrick Kahn.

About the Artists

Nicolas Senegas is a French photographer who studied anthropology and photography. Early on, he developed a passion for studying humans, in their physical and aesthetical dimensions, but also in their approach to spirituality, rites, customs, desires and fears. Nicolas Sénégas’ work became more focused on studying the monstrous body and its evolution. Because of his studies, he also traveled across Europe to Siberia to meet tribes and to study Yakut shaman mummies. This led him to dig deeper into the meanderings of the human unconscious. His approach may be described as “loving the perfect imperfection.”

Cristina Troufa is a Portuguese artist, working predominantly in figurative painting. In recent works, she uses her own image in autobiographical paintings that explore her livings and spiritual beliefs. As a form of self-knowledge and self-questioning, her work explores, in a symbolic and surrealistic way, an inner world. Her use of extreme perspective, a clean line and a soft color palette are counterpoints to her rendering of intimate moments, often unseen and private.

David Catá is a Spanish artist who uses needle-and-thread to embroider portraits of people who have impacted his life onto his palms. He calls the series of works ‘a flor de piel’, which means ‘under the skin.’ Under the Skin is an autobiographical diary that is supported by his body. On it, he writes the story of his life. He says that he sews on the palm of his hand, ‘the faces of all the people who, somehow, have marked me throughout my life, family, friends, couples, teachers. Their lives are interwoven with mine to build my story, a story that ends when I run out of leaves to write about.’

Roger Weiss is a Swiss photographer whose large scale images were exhibited for the first time at Snap! Space. Roger Weiss’ Human Dilatations series is a study of the feminine form. Inspired by the Kintsugi Japanese technique (a reparation process using gold to fill cracks), the subject is fragmented and then reassembled, unifying a series of hundreds of photos into a single image. The resulting vision is a particular analysis of every detail of the human body. A remarkable undertaking.

Marwane Pallas is a French photographer who uses forced perspective to link edible objects to body parts. Titling a series of self portraits the ‘doctrine of signatures,’ after an important aspect of folk medicine, she drew upon the belief that herbs resembling parts of the body can be used to treat ailments of those human components. Marwane’s work has been exhibited in NYC, Miami, London & Paris.

Jörg Heidenberger is a German photographer who uses traditional film photography to photograph his own body in a series of wide-angle portraits, on a cube. Jörg processes his own films, and he explains that his finished images are a ‘rudimentary version‘ of his virtual sketches. Jörg Heidenberger’s work is being exhibited for the first time in the U.S., at Snap! Space.