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Shadow I

photo: Adam Sakovy
photo: Adam Sakovy
photo: Adam Sakovy
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    • Shadow I
  • 1972/97
  • b&w photograph
  • 30,5 × 39,4 cm
“Shadow I” and “Shadow II” are from VALIE EXPORT’s conceptual photographic series of the early 1970s. In one photo, the palm, and in the other, the back of a hand can be seen in a mirror, with the prolongation of the arm visible only as a shadow below the mirror’s edge. In her work, EXPORT has placed importance both on staging reality through a continuum of space and time and on the exploitation of technical media. Here, it is the photographic apparatus that helps the artist explore aspects of visible reality. While such reality can never be fathomed as a whole, the employment of a mirror and photography makes it possible to see both sides of the hand at the same time, albeit in reverse perspective. To the artist, understanding reality implies simultaneously understanding multiple identities, of which only a selection¬—like one sees in these two photos—can be grasped and perceived. W.S.