V O G U E | Diaspora: Photographic essay

Cooper & Gorfer consists of the two artists Sarah Cooper (USA, 1974) and Nina Gorfer (Austria, 1979). With their backgrounds in art, architecture, graphic design and photography, they began their collaboration in 2006. Their work belongs to a narrative tradition within photography existing at the intersection of contemporary photography and 18th and 19th century painting. Place and story are the catalysts of their work, transforming narrative and memories into images that are digitally processed to create painterly collages.

For their exhibition My Quiet of Gold, Cooper and Gorfer traveled to the rural areas of Kyrgyzstan to collect sagas and stories in conversations and interviews with local inhabitants. Out of these tales, the duo created striking photographic portraits that go far beyond mere documentation to tell and visually interpret romantic-melancholy stories of love, sorrow, and betrayal in a completely new and non-linear ways.

"Like the portrait in Oscar Wilde's novel 'The Picture of Dorian Grey', our images show more than just an objective view of the person portrayed. Instead, they also depict something we cannot see - the past, the insubstantial and intangible, where the life and sentiment of the person photographed are woven together with our perception and experience of the moment. In the end, our pictures are the stories' beautiful remains."
~~ Cooper & Gorfer

Sarah Cooper and Nina Gorfer live and work in Gothenburg, Sweden.

My Quiet of Gold is an exhibition from the renowned Hasselblad Foundation in Gothenburg, and is currently on view at Gestalten Space, Berlin. A book of the same name has also been published, and is available through the gallery.

My Quiet of Gold

© Cooper & Gorfer, Shola and the Cat, 2010

© Cooper & Gorfer, Shola and Islam in a Field of Newly Planted Trees, 2010

© Cooper & Gorfer, Nazgul Holding Wheat in Green, 2010

© Cooper & Gorfer, Blue Shola, 2011

© Cooper & Gorfer, Brothers and Arms, 2011

© Cooper & Gorfer, 1916 - The childline, 2011

© Cooper & Gorfer, The Carpet Picture, 2011

© Cooper & Gorfer, Red Shola Standing, 2011

Courtesy Cooper & Gorfer / Gestalten Space, Berlin

My Quiet of Gold

Gestalten Space, Berlin, Germany

October 27 - November 27, 2011
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This is a follow up on a previous post, La Dolce Vita, Stars and Celebrities in the Italian Fifties.

From her very first performance on film in 1948 as an airline stewardess to her last one in 1989 as an angel, Audrey Hepburn withstood over forty years of artistic scrutiny. Today she remains the irrefutable personification of irresistible charm, grace and dignity.

On the fiftieth anniversary of Breakfast at Tiffany's, and simultaneously with the Rome International Film Festival, the eternal city will be honoring Audrey Hepburn for the first time with a tribute-exhibit at the Ara Pacis Museum. This celebration of the actress and humanitarian in "her" Rome will raise funds for UNICEF's project to fight child malnutrition, in conjunction with the Club Amici di Audrey. Hepburn devoted the last years of her life to serving as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.

The exhibition contains images, videos and personal objects that recall the three lives Hepburn lived in Rome: as an actress, mother and UNICEF Ambassador. It coincides with the release of a book also titled Audrey a Roma and published by Mondadori. The photographic essay is featuring around 200 photos, snap shots rather than poses, portraying the actress during her daily life, strolling around the city with her dogs, with her family, with her children.

The exhibit is curated by Audrey Hepburn's son, Luca Dotti, together with Ludovica Damiani, Sciascia Gambaccini and Guido Torlonia, with the consultancy of Sava Bisazza Terracini.

"Each city in its own way was... unforgettable. It would be difficult to... Rome; by all means, Rome.
I will cherish my visit here, in memory, for as long as I live."
~~ Audrey in Roman Holiday

Audrey Hepburn, Rome, 1960

Pierluigi Praturton © Reporters Associati