Coplans began making photographs of his own body while he was director of the Akron Art Museum in Ohio in the late 1970s and early 1980s. By cropping his body in unexpected ways and capturing it from unusual, oblique angles such as this one, Coplans renders this intimately familiar subject matter strange to both himself and the viewer. Interested in the flawed ordinariness of an aging man’s body, he always leaves the head out of the frame, emphasizing the universal quality of the human form. Likening his photographic process to one of the most fundamental acts of drawing, Coplans recalled of his early practice, "It was like beginning life-drawing class all over again, with myself as the model."

Gallery label from

Exquisite Corpses: Drawing and Disfiguration, March 14–July 9, 2012.

Medium Gelatin silver print
Dimensions 13 3/4 × 17 1/4" (35.1 × 43.8 cm)
Credit Gift of Peter MacGill
Object number 131.1986
Department Photography

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