Dimensions: image: 1444 x 938 mm
Copyright: © The estate of John Coplans | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: This is John Coplans' *Self-Portrait (Feet Frontal)*. It's an arresting image. The stark, close-up view of just his feet is…unexpected. What do you see in this work? Curator: Feet, historically, have been laden with symbolic weight, from religious pilgrimage to expressions of power and subservience. What memories and emotions do these feet evoke? Editor: I guess it's about vulnerability. Stripped bare. Curator: Precisely. Coplans confronts mortality by focusing on a part of the body often overlooked. Think about how that challenges conventional portraiture. What do you make of it now? Editor: I see a radical act, reclaiming the body and defying beauty standards. Thanks! Curator: A powerful inversion, indeed, rendering the ordinary profound.
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http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/coplans-self-portrait-feet-frontal-p11670
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These photos were taken by the artist John Coplans of his own gnarled and wrinkled body. Although they are self-portraits, Coplans doesn't show his face. Instead he focuses on isolated body parts such as hands and feet, showing them enlarged and close-up, so that they seem at once familiar and unfamiliar. Coplans' monumental images recall classical sculpture, whilst emphasising the relentless progression of the aging process. Gallery label, August 2004
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