The Garden of Identity

Added 1716116579 by Steve Tabor.

This series pays tribute to Saul Steinberg by using paper bag masks to comment on changing notions of female identity. Saul Steinberg was a cartoonist for the New Yorker magazine, who used paper bag mask-making to explore issues of identity. In 1958, he started making paper bag masks that turned his subjects into caricatures of the time: wealthy women, sassy secretaries, confident businessmen, etc. Inge Morath, a well known photographer,shot and published a book of Steinberg and his friends wearing his paper bag masks.

For this series, a Belgian artist-cum-photography model, Solivagant, was invited to create paper bag masks, with each mask symbolizing different facets of her own identity. Photos of Solivagant wearing just the masks were combined with photos taken, coincidentally, the same week from the Japanese Garden in Clingendael Park, the Hague.