Art World
Chameleon Photographer Inhabits Many Lives
Dita Pepe uses make-up and costumes to step into other strangers' families.
Sarah Cascone
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For the past 15 years, photographer Dita Pepe has been pushing the limits of her own unique blend of portraiture: She photographs herself with other interesting-looking people, but not before using make-up, costumes, and careful staging to remake herself in their image, stepping seamlessly into their lives. As reported by the Huffington Post, these photos are now the subject of Pepe’s new monograph, Dita Pepe: Self-Portraits.
The Czech-born photographer began her work in 1999, posing as the doppleganger of different women. Over the years, the scope of the project expanded to include “Self Portraits with Men” as Pepe began posing with men, transforming herself into a thoroughly convincing partner and mother. These imagined lives paired the artist with a wide range of men, women, children, and relatives. The resulting work transcends race, age, culture, and social status. In many photos, she incorporates her own daughters into the portraits as well, creating blended family units that might have been, each somehow as convincing as the last.
Though the initial impulse might be to compare Pepe’s work to noted photographic chameleon Cindy Sherman’s groundbreaking “Untitled Film Stills” series, it is worth noting these aren’t just familiar archetypes that Pepe is embodying—they are real people Pepe is effortlessly imitating. Taken as a whole, the series is at once unsettling (Pepe’s constant presence in such drastically different environs is more than a little disconcerting, and seems to critique the tendency to lose one’s sense of self in all-consuming relationships) and inspiring, serving to remind us that our lives can take any number of paths.
“It was very important for me to explain the purpose of my work to make those involved comfortable with me,” Pepe told Slate of her models, who started out as family and friends, but quickly grew to include strangers. “We talked about the relativity of life events, how little it would take to be born in a different family, have different friends, partners…working together helped me to understand personal views and how to deal with different aspects of life, the importance of various values and how to grasp moments of happiness; this project influenced my perception of the world and myself.”
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