JOHN STEZAKER
b. 1949, United KingdomAcclaimed London-based artist John Stezaker is known for his photographic collage works, that draw on the artist’s immense archive of mid-twentieth century cinema memorabilia, agency head-shots, postcards and photobooks. In a practice built over several decades, Stezaker splices together diverse visions, conjoining male and female faces along sharp diagonal seams, or placing scenic Romantic landscape postcards directly over the expressions of unknown actors. Using the remnants of the film industry to revitalise the power of the static image, insisting on the dynamism of the single frame and of the silent picture.
Read in a time of post-lens imaging, Stezaker’s works recall Surrealist techniques and the form of modern political satire; appearing first as relics from Hollywood’s golden era, and not without some nostalgia. However these fabricated portraits of an obsolete glamour speak directly to a contemporary experience of fragmentation and illegibility, becoming reminders of the impossibility of the image to communicate.
He was awarded the 2012 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize; and held a major survey exhibition at London’s Whitechapel Gallery in 2011.
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