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Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger create miniature replicas of iconic photographs
Their work will be displayed at Photo London this week
For more art stories, head to The Spaces
CNN
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Swiss artists Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger play with history, creating 3D replicas of iconic photographs in their Zurich studio from cardboard, wood and glue.
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For their ongoing Icons series – on show at Photo London this week – they ‘remake’ important world events. Among their scenes is man’s first step on the moon, recreated from Edwin Aldrin’s 1969 image, and the Paris Concorde crash, as captured by Toshihiko Sato in 2000.
© EAST WING 2017/courtesy of Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger
Their final compositions reveal their conceit. Cortis and Sonderegger pull back the camera from their sculptures to show the surrounding studio and the accoutrements of their craft – glue, tape and cotton wool. Past and present intertwine, and the viewer is asked to question fact and fiction.
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‘One should not simply trust photography,’ Cortis explains. ‘When there was no digital image processing, there was still a means to stage a picture or direct it in one way.’
The duo began the project as a joke in 2012. ‘In our free time, when there’s no money coming in, we decided to try to recreate the most expensive pictures in the world,’ Cortis says.
Now they’ve created a body of 50 images – nine of which are being shown at Photo London by Dubai-based East Wing gallery – that will culminate in a 2018 book, published by Thames & Hudson.
Courtesy Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger
At first glance it could appear like an elaborate movie set. In fact, it's a miniature model of photographer Sam Shere's well-known 1937 image of the Hindenburg disaster. The eerily realistic work is one of around a dozen famous pictures recreated by Swiss artists
Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger.
Courtesy Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger
Over the last three years, the artists have recreated some of history's most memorable scenes, spending anywhere from two days to two weeks on each model. One of the most taxing was Stuart Franklin's photograph of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. "Building he first tank was fun, the second one was ok, and then after that it was just hard work," said Cortis.
Courtesy Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger
Each image steps back a little from the model, giving a sense of scale and revealing the equipment used in the making. "We didn't want to mislead people, and we wanted to show how we did it," said Cortis. Here, photographer John Thomas Daniels captured the Wright brothers' first flight in 1903.
Courtesy Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger
Fishing wire and transparent paper were often used to suspend clouds, as seen in this recreated 1917 photo by Ernest Brooks of "Five Soldiers Silhouetted at the Battle of Broodseinde."
Courtesy Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger
The artworks raise interesting questions about authenticity -- are the original photographs any more real than the photographs of miniature models? "There are many miniatures that we did which were of faked or staged events," said Cortis. "Loch Ness is obviously faked. And there are stories on the web where people think Stanley Kubrick faked these moon pictures," he added of Buzz Aldrin's 1969 image of his bootprint.
Courtesy Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger
Here, a recreated model of Francis Brown's 1912 "The Last Photo of the Titanic Afloat," appears to magically sail out of the page.
Courtesy Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger
Look closer and you'll see the batteries on the left are the same size as this illuminated Concorde inspired by Toshihiko's 2000 photo.
Courtesy Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger
Cortis sees a distinction between world events we can remember, and those before our time. "In images like 9/11, everybody remembers what they were doing at the time. When people look at these pictures, the feelings are more personal," he said of Sean Adair's photo of the smoking World Trade Center.
Courtesy Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger
"Can we ever really trust a photograph?" said Cortis, pondering the authenticity of Marmaduke Wetherell's 1934 image of the Loch Ness Monster.
Courtesy Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger
The artists used a toy store figurine to recreate this 2003 photo of a hooded prisoner at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
Courtesy Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger
Playdough and women's stockings were used to create the man on the balcony in Ludwig Wegmann's haunting image of the 1972 Munich Olympics kidnapping.
Courtesy Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger
The saying "making a mountain out of a molehill" is given new meaning in this model of Louis-Auguste Bisson and Auguste-Rosalie Bisson's 1861 "Ascent of Mont Blanc."
Courtesy Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger
Bag loads of cotton wool was used to recreate Charles Levy's image of the 1945 bombing of Nagasaki, originally taken from one of the B-29 planes used in the U.S. attack on Japan.
Courtesy Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger
It might seem simplistic compared to other images, by Andreas Gursky's "Rhein II" was the most expensive photograph ever sold, when it was auctioned for $4.3 million in 2011. The German photographer used digital imaging to remove passersby and buildings, giving the picture its uninterrupted view of the river. Whether it's an original, or a recreated model, reality is never clear-cut in the world of photography.
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Their 3D miniatures are deliberately low-fi in construction. Look closely and you’ll spot the wood grain that doubles for ripples on the sea, or the cotton wool used to evoke clouds. Photoshop work is restricted to colour adjustments only.
Photo London runs until 21 May 2017 at Somerset House, London.
For more art stories, head to The Spaces.