Kim
Abeles

Self Portraits

Susan Sontag's On Photography influenced my first series of self portraits, Experiment for Myself as Other (1979). I made these photographs using different implements to strike the camera shutter button. The self portraits that followed through the years were photographed using the 10-second timer on my camera, and retain the subject-object-viewer interchange.

Sontag's idea of the physical and metaphoric nature of the photograph, and the literal meaning in regards to its implementation, has influenced all of my art. The importance of tactile materials in my sculpture, and their subliminal meanings, is directly linked to Sontag's notion of comprehending an action - like shooting a photo or taking a picture - for its full value and direct implication.

As Sisyphisto, I wear my studio tools or carry forty pounds of them ranging from the sewing machine to the slide projector and electric saws. Self Portrait with Files are actually all the files from my shows at that time, the plans, lists, and reviews. It's the kind of stuff a person lugs around, or the laurels where one would only wish to rest.

A recent example, Assisted Living (2024), depicts the artist straddled across a dining room table, dropping white paint on the photograph of the artist straddled across a dining room table. This photo within a photo echoes with existential undercurrents, while the ice skater in the reproduction of Sir Henry Raeburn's painting on the wall painlessly glides. As the photographer, I must leap onto the table with a thud, before the 10-second timer traps the moment.

I'm interested in the moments when the physical takes over thought.