Enrico Nagel’s newest body of works, entitled Second Sight, begun in 2011 and already spanning more than 20 pieces, takes a step further by reversing his usual stance. In this series, the image as raw material is treated in it’s physicality. Keeping the template in its original form, Enrico Nagel distorts the beauty of the smooth male model images he choses by submitting the image material to water baths, burning, colouring and drawing. Having been suffused with a new ‘history’, the images seem to pose questions about the story of their own making- initially made to sell products, they now seem to inhabit more personal, strange narratives, while gaining a fictitious historical authenticity.
The sterility of the photoshopped male ‘prototypes’ dissolves behind dark washes and is soiled by organic structures- the computer-optimized image finding it’s way back to being analogous, and one of a kind.
