Description: Photo-based German artist Heidi Specker examines the circumstances and conditions of the portrait in her newest photo-series, In front ofa suite of 68 black-and-white and color portraits of people and animals, close-ups of body parts, or hands holding postcards or artworks. Interspersed with photographs of details of an empty studio between takes, the images draw the viewer into a dreamy and pensive atmosphere. The clean design of the modest, well-edited catalog puts these intimate portraits front and center while creating a sense of mystery and anticipation that keeps the viewers interest on edge. Heir to the long history of German portraiture, especially that of the modernist photographers Renger-Patzsch and Otto Steinert, Specker creates an atmosphere that takes her portraits one step further to reveal the power structures and interdependencies between photographer and model during a sitting. With a preface by Thomas Kohler and a brief essay on the artists
