Photography Modelling Scenography since 2012 

In the Icons series, the two photographers recreate icons of photographic history as three-dimensional dioramas in the studio. The models are then photographed. This creates images that seem to resemble the originals down to the last detail. However, the seamless illusion is immediately undermined by bringing the studio setting and the traces of the work process into the picture. Scenes that have become deeply inscribed in our collective memory—the burning Twin Towers, Robert Capa’s falling militiaman in the Spanish Civil War or Stuart Franklin’s photograph of the “Tank Man” on Tiananmen Square—rise up between tripods, soft boxes, Stanley knives and the remains of model kits.

Icons is at once a homage to the history of photography, a humorous appropriation of its pillar saints and—in the double staging of motif and studio situation—a reflection on the workings of the medium. At a time when alternative facts are being used in too many places, the images in the Icons series encourage us to reflect on the fragile truth of photography, the relationship between authenticity and construction, and the significance of context and perspective.