From 1984 to 1988, Vera Lehndorff and Holger Trülzsch worked on the project 'SIRIUS' , executed inside a used clothing warehouses in Prato, Italy. This group of photographs takes its name from the homonymous constellation, also known as 'Dog Star'.

In the early 70s, both artists began their collaboration experimenting with performance and body art. This group of photographs were shot against a background of piles of colourful rags, transferring onto the body of the model/artist the abstract image created by the multi-coloured structure of the material. The body thus seems to disappear, blending with the textile background. A selection of polaroids captures various moments like a narrative document of the creative process, considered by the artists as an art form on its own.

"I felt almost like Pygmalion, but having a fearful vision that beauty could turn into a monstrous creature; well, it did, in a quiet ambiguous way, it became alive as a great painting, the old dream of painters, transformed into the evidence of photography. It had been an incredible challenge for me to work out paintings in an old master's fresco technique, anamorphic folding structures of materials on a living canvas" recalls Trülzsch.

Close to the surrealist vision of René Magritte's photograph "Amour", depicting himself painting on his wife's body, a study for his painting "Attempting the impossible" from 1928, we are invited to look behind the appearance and to get lost in the metamorphosis, visible/invisible, blending with the surroundings.

Lehndorff recalls: "My body is artistic matter for me and is used as a tool for transformation - reappearing in various forms as an artistic Self – giving the illusion of different identities. There is no way I can explain the pleasure of the game of Transformation".




Sala Enel
MACRO
via Nizza 138
Roma

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SIRIUS
Exhibition view, MACRO

SIRIUS
Exhibition view, MACRO