Tottenham Court Road, 1999


 

These two images represent the oldest artworks I am showing here. There are photographic reproductions of faces on call girl advertisements posted in telephone boxes around London's Tottenham Court Road. The images were reproduced using a large format camera with a magnifying glass as its lens. The lens was in fact only millimeters away from the surface of the postcards. This and the uncorrected optical qualities of the lens produced a focused picture only in the centre of the image while the rest quickly dissolves into blurriness.

The women are transfixing the viewer hidden behind what appears to be a veil. This 'veil', however, turns out to be the very substance the faces are made of. They reside completely within the graphics of the halftone dots of which the images are composed, although optically it seems hard to believe that there are no 'hidden greys' in between the black dots, in which the flesh and skin could be anchored. The sexual desire, as which these advertisements were constructed, thus falls in one with the spectator's desire for the sheer existence of the substance of the face - be it imagined.

The work still awaits completion to this day. I would like to silk-screen the images onto very thin paper in a limited edition of a few hundred. The posters should be stacked on two low pedestals and sold from that heap. Should the occasion arise I will produce these editions.


 Test Page by Julian S.

Michael Schwab

michael_at_seriate.net

CV

Documents

 

News

Conference Contribution and Exhibition

'Figurations of Knowledge'
5th Biannual European Conference of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA), Berlin

02 - 07 June 2008


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Paris

Book Launch

18 May 2008

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The Full Circle
A collaborative project by Eduardo Padilha and Michael Schwab

Studio 1.1, London

11/05 - 01/06/2008

Private View:
10/05/2008 6-8pm


Artists' Talk:
25/05/2008 3.30pm

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Full Circle Family Workshops

Gasworks, London

19 - 22 February 2008

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Keynote Paper and Exhibition

'Art and Research: How?'
International Conference at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn


14/15 February 2008

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Artist Talk

'figure' at the Tramdepot Gallery, London

3 February 2008, 2pm

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Figure

The Tramdepot

Private View Friday 25 January 7 - 11 pm

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As if something once mentioned, now plain to see

Book by COLONY, Birmingham

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The Full Circle
A collaborative project by Eduardo Padilha and Michael Schwab

Huisrechts, Amsterdam

13.9 - 16.10 2007

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Political Art 2007 Almanac
Reunion Projects

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Artistic Research and the Role of Critique.

In: van Koten, H. (ed), Proceeds of Reflections on Creativity, 21 and 22 April 2006.

Dundee: Duncan of Jordanstone College, 2007. ISBN:  1 899837 56 6.