Work from Free Sitting and new work from Portraits.
Herting makes work in which "the currency of the studio portrait is examined." They are a conceptual departure and a critical examination of the studio portrait.
"My photographs maybe characterized as portraits, although I am not interested in capturing the uniqueness of an individual. The subjects of my photographs are not the individuals depicted but the construction of the portrait itself.
In order to make the photographs in Free Sitting I got a job as a trade photographer at a portrait studio in a department store. Despite the time and care people take when having their pictures taken at commercial studios, the resulting photographs are rarely considered to be aesthetic object. Yet, they do reveal a great deal about how we choose to image our relationships and ourselves.
The studio portrait has a very structured set of parameters that form a stylistic equation. We are so familiar with it that we are blind to its constructs. I violate these codes in effort to bring them to the viewerÃs attention. By breaking the rules of the studio portrait, my portraits no longer fulfill their role as social symbols."
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