I commissioned a portrait bust of myself from a wood sculptor in the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire since I wanted to test whether our own facial features determine the way we perceive and portray others. In his novel 'The Portrait of Dorian Gray' (1890), Oscar Wilde puts forward the hypothesis that we as artists tend to portray ourselves rather than the person portrayed. Following the principle of whispered mail, I asked - one after the other and in different places - four African sculptors to copy the life-size wooden bust depicting me. The first sculpture served as a model for the second sculpture and the latter as a model for the third - until at the end of a series of five portraits (much earlier than I had expected) the bust showed an African woman. The artwork StillePost juxtaposes my photographic portraits of the sculptors and their busts of me. The busts became more and more African, as the artists unconsciously incorporated their own facial features into their copy.
Contribution:
Dramane Kolo-Zié Coulibaly (Portrait bust), Amadou Coulibaly, Dosso N'Gouamué, Gboungué Louna Pascal, Bidije Goure (Copy of the busts) Arno Henseler (mediator), City of Munich: project scholarship (funding).