Collier Schorr
Jens F.

November 4 - December 17, 2005

Andrew Roth is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition of new works by Collier Schorr. On view will be a selection of sketches, photographs, collages and ephemera relating to her new artist’s book Jens F. published in a limited edition by steidl/MACK.

Jens F. is the name of a young German schoolboy that Schorr has been photographing for over five years. Using Andrew Wyeth’s Helga Pictures as a template for intimate portraiture, Schorr explores, through the act of photographing, the process of imposing one identity on another, that of Helga onto Jens F. and the transformation that ensues. As she states: “The work evolved into a kind of dance between two models, between painting and photography, between the exacting detail of photography and all the nuances of sketches and drawings … The camera formats change; the boy’s body changes; the light changes. Levels of intimacy change.”

While the “Jens F.” project stars Jens himself, other models are integrated into the body of work, each as a substitute for the masquerading boy. A girl who looks like a boy; a boy who likes Jens; Jens’s sister who looks like Helga’s daughter; and finally, a woman in her 30s who is a perfect stand-in for Helga herself, adding further dimension to Schorr’s investigation into the female pose.

An initial series of collages relating to this work was presented at the Whitney Biennial in 2002. From the Biennial catalogue: “Wyeth’s attraction to Helga’s Germanic air is raised to an issue of historical specificity when the setting is transferred to an authentically German site and the model replaced by an actual German person. On this shifting ground of being and place, Schorr creates a remarkable study in the dual phenomena of identity and attraction.”

Jens F. is issued in an edition of 1000 copies, signed and numbered by the artist. The exhibition is presented in cooperation with 303 Gallery.