Freaks

These photographs develop from a previous series of altered 19th century illustrations of people. The new work involves the manipulation of actual photographs. “These portraits are based on found photographs which are rephotographed and printed in variations. The alterations that I make are always intended to ‘normalize’ the subjects, but because of the roughness of my technique, chance plays an important part in the end result. Thus I have found that the mistakes I have made are very often more interesting than the intended result. I began this series with a question: to what extent do the final represented subjects, in spite of the manipulations and degradations of the image, carry their past with them? My assumption is that the photographic document does contain a residue of subjecthood that remains intact.” Marcus Miller