Andrzej Steinbach

The third part of a series of portraits dealing with questions of representation and our perception of the photographic model, L'Appareil presents the figure of a photographer in action. The sexual neutrality of the model assimilates her to the photographic camera, of which she is like a continuity: the camera of the title is as much the mechanical object as the body that makes it work and sets it in motion. The gaze and the body are interconnected. Reproducing a casting or scientific observation situation, Steinbach has the model simulate various photographic strategies, gestures and attitudes, creating variations with the help of a reduced set of accessories, while systematically leaving out of view the action or the object towards which the camera is directed. Is it a war scene, a demonstration? If the photographs refer to highly coded uses of photography and, in a way, to precise genres, they also recall the process at work in their production, generally erased by the image itself.