Dress Code is a current exhibition of photography and video at the International Center of Photography.
I was particularily interested in the work of Thorsten Brinkman. He is a German artist who is a self declared “serial collector”.
A self-described “serial collector,” German artist Thorsten Brinkmann photographs himself in extraordinary costumes that he creates from castoff clothing and household objects salvaged from the street or from flea markets. While the resulting images echo the formal conventions of classical portraiture, the bizarre costumes, invariably masking his face, disrupt our expectations. In fact, the most disconcerting element of these images is Brinkmann’s persistent withholding of the human face, which is replaced by objects ranging from flowerpots to lampshades, purses, or tennis-racket covers. These discordant elements confuse the distinctions between body and object, giving rise to fantastical figures that are at once stately and monstrous. For the Triennial, Brinkman has installed his photographs in a self-designed room composed of found materials—a three-dimensional environment that intentionally blurs the line between sculpture and photography.
