Self-portraits (2011)
18 PICTURES
In his younger days Stephan Vanfleteren had to overcome the fear of photographing people on the street at close range in order to make public spaces his field of action. However, nowadays he increasingly opts for a more subdued setting. His penetrating black-and-white portraits are ruthlessly direct. Yet Vanfleteren does not so much aim at unmasking a subject’s soul, carefully highlighted by his trained eye. Rather, his stripped-down images of people full of character are primarily an enlargement of an encounter in time. What initially appears to be a cross-section of the contemporary Belgian art scene is equally a gallery for the photographer’s personal experiences and a portrait of his oeuvre. Each portrait is part of a self-portrait. From left to right and top to bottom: La Esterella, Raoul Servais, Raoul De Keyser, Sam Dillemans, Pascale Platel, Koen Vanmechelen,Marcel Van Maele, Dirk Braeckman, Jan Fabre, Wannes Van de Velde, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Jan Hoet, Chris Lomme, Fred Bervoets, Arno, Jeroen Brouwers, Roger Raveel and Hugo Claus