BRUNO METRA - Galerie Nardone

BRUNO METRA

In the media, we are bombarded by images of others. It is an otherness that is inaccessible, an image imposed on us, from which we feel powerless to escape. To reflect on the notion of identity, we are inviting each of our models to play a part in a simple experiement: to cut out of a magazine the face of this other and to appropriate it in part. These paper cut outs of people are then applied by us to our models.

These faces, transformed in this way, become a photographic work of art that takes a hard look at our identity. Each model de-faces the other and then, in turn, defaces herself/himself (each person becoming the other by destroying her/ his model and own image). The fragility of their identity becomes visible, almost tangible. She/he has become a blend. « Because I is an other ». The laws of appearance drive us, in fact, to shape our own image to the point of transformation. Beauty is no longer natural, but rather socially conditioned.

The act of representation seems to have taken over what is real. The edit is what counts most. And so models erase themselves in order to gain another self. The figure of the other is no longer that of otherness… it no longer references our real image nor our humanity. We are portraying identities weakened by the diktat of appearance. Intervention is deliberately rendered apparent. The rough cuttings as well as the tape symbolise both the violence and the fragility at play. The nude individual makes the artifice seem even more brutal…