Photography"> random picks
Schaden.com - Projects * Publishing * for International Contemporary Photography

 

Official Portraits
The executive Heads of state of the 191 member states of the UNO
HC 16 x 21 cm.
Trolley 2005

In diesem Jahr gibt´s einen neuen Star: Dieses kleine Buch das so bescheiden auftritt und soviel bereithält. Das Konzept dahinter: die Redaktion fragte die jeweiligen Länder nach einem Portrait des Landesoberhauptes. Die eingesendeten Bilder übertreffen alle Erwartungen: 191 Portraits. Das ist wirklich Masse statt Klasse! Ein Buch für das "Schmökern" am Kamin, im ICE erste Klasse-Abteil, beim Warten im Kino, und, hoffentlich bald, auf der Wiese im Park.
 
Authority, leadership, stability, benevolence, even grace: these are some of the qualities state leaders seek to portray in their official portraits. When all member states of the United Nations were asked to submit the official portrait of their Head of State the diversity was surprising: ranging from snapshots to staged tableaux in generic offices, from full-length portraits in front of stately buildings to close-ups before national emblems. Some portraits invoke the bureaucratic machinery that went into their production, while others seem more indebted to personal whimsy; even the banality of the everyday snapshot occasionally creeps into these staged displays of official power.

Editorial influence is kept to a minimum. The selection of a single image to be reproduced in this volume was always left to the submitting embassies or governmental press offices. Organised alphabetically by state, Official Portraits allows these images to speak for themselves. Edited by Klaus Zwangsleitner.

 


random picks