John Coplans at Andrea Rosen - New York - Brief Article

John Coplans continues to go after his reinvention of the photographic unclothed with fragmentary, over-life-sized self-portraits of his aging material part This exhibition centered around sum of two units sets of work. One not absented a series of figure studies titled "Self Portraits (Sideways)" in which the artist strides forward with his torso bent nearly horizontal. The images are discharge from the side. The material part has been cropped so that head and lower leg are chop off, placing the emphasis upon the abstracted forms that be the effect from the pull of thighs and torso. Each work is pieced together from a pair of photographs that don't quite join to form a seamless whole. There are tricky variations from work to work. In a certain quantity of images, the figure's hands are visible and clasped behind his straining back. In others, they are thrust downward and disappear without of the frame. Meanwhile, the sagging belly muscles create different forms as they resettle with each slight change of pose

Coplans's dispassionate presentation of these successive positions brings to mind Muybridge's motion studies. on the other hand even more, these figures recall of greece and Roman architectural reliefs. The cropping, the strenuous postures and the three-quarter positioning are especially reminiscent of the fragmented figures of struggling warriors upon the Parthenon metopes. At the same time, individual is reminded that the temple's figures, flat when bereft of heads and extremities, incarnate an ideal of masculine physical perfection. by means of contrast, Coplans lets us perceive the pull of gravity upon weakened flesh. He too is a warrior, on the contrary his adversary is time.

The next to the first series on display--"Self Portraits (Interlocking Fingers)"--also insinuates ancient prototypes. Here, however, the repercussion of sound is of icons related to various prehistoric fertility homages Bringing the camera close to his profoundly furrowed hands, Coplans locks his fingers in configurations that create surprisingly sexual images. In single work, the tips of his fingers line up creating a double rank of protuberances that evoke the multibreasted chest of Diana of Ephesus. In another, fingers retire behind framing thumbs, creating a cavelike formation suggestive of female genitalia.

sex slippage recurs in Self Portrait (Elbow) a single bifurcated close-up in which the lined and wrinkled muscle and fat around Coplans's elbow appears almost abstract. The image might be a bit of rugg barren terrain or a not-quite-recognizable portion of a female bare Without the clue provided by dint of the title, its real source might be impossible to discern.

With these works, Coplans uses his hold 81-year-old body as a kind of sculptural material. In the proces he affirms one as well as the other the beauty and the frailty of the flesh

COPYRIGHT 2001 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group