In 1984, at the age of sixty-four, John Coplans began to take photographs of his naked body. These black-and-white self-portraits never included his face, intending to be symbolic of any male body, aging and anonymous. Sometimes, his images show limbs so contorted or close ups so detailed that they verge on abstraction. An important art critic and editor before turning to artistic production, Coplans said that his photos “recall memories of mankind,” pushing his own representation of the body to talk in a collective language—one that could give voice to an unconscious and primordial thought. For Self Portrait (Frieze, nr. 4, three panels), the artist presents his standing figure three times, from the chest to just below the knees, copped by a white grid that gives the viewer a fragmented view of the subject. The high level of detail in these prints gives them an almost graphic quality, as though they were drawings of a slightly claustrophobic situation.

Image: John Coplans ©The John Coplans Trust