Isabelle Wenzel, Wuppertal 2, 2015. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Bart
Isabelle Wenzel has a special eye for the human body and in her photography she uses her own to become the photographer, the sitter and the observer. Every of her series has its own unique theme, often depicting surreal shots of faceless female subjects defying gravity in rigid headstands, bent in intricate poses or in performative acts, always with a pinch of humour and sensuality. Initially Wenzel shot in her Amsterdam studio and later moved into the picturesque outdoors where she completed “Transformations”, a series with focus on the legs in all their performativity.
From 18 to 20 of September the artist is presenting “Transformations” at Amsterdam’s Unseen Photo Fair. Sleek talked to Wenzel about her ideal pair of pins, the questions her work raises, and the distribution of power between the photographer, the model and the public.
We’re also offering double tickets to Unseen Photo Fair, and in order to win one, simply e-mail us with your name and address. The winners will be notified on 1 September.
Isabelle Wenzel, Jump 2, 2015. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Bart
Some of your images evoke other forms of art especially within surrealism. What are your influences?
Actually I do think I’m more interested in performing arts and movies than in cultural movements. But can a performance actually be represented through another medium? So I wonder what we are looking at, or what makes up a performance especially the one created for the camera; is it a piece of art in its own right, or a documentation, and why am I not able to understand the performance by looking at these images? So actually my interests raise a lot of questions, which are triggering my curiosity and push me to develop my work further.
What is the process of putting a shot together?
I go somewhere, mainly to public places which can work as a stage. Then I set up my tripod and the camera, get dressed in one of the costumes I have previously picked from my stock. Often I do have a certain movement or action in mind. Then I press the autotimer of my camera, run into a position, have some seconds before the shutter clicks, check the outcome on the screen and repeat what I’m doing until I’m satisfied with the result. For example, this September at Unseen Photo Fair in Amsterdam I will show with Galerie Bart a selection of my latest work “Transformations”. “Transformations” is a body of work that combines images of my field studies where I interacted with abandoned landscapes and studio shoots where I captured my own body in performance-based movement. In some of these images several shots are layered on top of each other in a way that I doubled or tripled my movements. I was interested in bringing together different perspectives from one and the same motive, like a rotation or shift of it.
Isabelle Wenzel, Triple, 2015. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Bart
Why are your subjects female?
My subject matter is the borderline between exhibitionism and voyeurism and how this is reflected in the medium of photography, especially within our modern media life. My work often deals with the representation of the female body, since it’s my own body, it’s kind of a cruelty to confront oneself all the time with the conceptions and dogmas that are connected to it but through this I get the feeling to understand things a bit better.
I’m curious about the distribution of power between the photographer, the model and the public. What does it mean for a photographer to focus on a motive, what does it mean for a model to pose on the other side for the camera? Absurdly, I incorporate all three roles of it; I’m the model, the photographer and the observer at the same time. I’m releasing a mechanism and at the same time giving an instant of an intuitive gesture. As a subject/object material I do experience myself as highly performative and modifiable. The pressure of the autotimer mingles all of it into something that even I do not understand. So, “Who am I?”, ”What is the object?” and “What relation does exist between us and the observer?”
Are those poses very difficult to hold? They look very awkward.
Yes, sometimes it hurts or I have to repeat a movement 100 times till I get a satisfactory result. I jump, run, bounce on the ground, crash, roll, fall, contort and crawl. As a matter of fact, I do feel more like a ridiculous stunt performer than a photographer. Apparently, this is unintentional.
Isabelle Wenzel, Halde 2.11, 2015. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Bart
What’s your ideal pair of legs?
Research has revealed that the perfect length for a woman’s legs is 1.4 times the length of her upper body. Legs with bones that run in a straight line from the top of the thigh through to the knee joint and ankle, with nips and curves at the knee and calf, were the most desirable. Mhhh, I think this must be a mistake; mine do not match anything of that… I do not care about perfectness, I like if they are burly, athletic, flexible, can run fast, jump high and are purely functional.
Unseen Photo Fair will take place at Amsterdam’s Westergasfabriek, from 18 to 20 September 2015
Interview by Will Furtado