Isabelle Le Minh's 'This Is the Artist' Explores Artist Portraiture

Isabelle Le Minh's video slideshow 'This Is the Artist' (2011) presents nearly a thousand artist portraits, slowly cycling through images of artists in studios, exhibitions, working, or resting. The project was inspired by the striking resemblance between a photo of Gerhard Richter and one of Fabrizio Plessi. Le Minh systematically combed art books from multiple libraries to extract these portraits. The images are organized by formal analogies (e.g., 'with balls,' 'in lotus position,' 'pointing at an invisible object') or by activities and attitudes (e.g., 'doing gymnastics,' 'doubting'). Photographers range from anonymous to famous names like Irving Penn and art-world photographers like André Morain. The slideshow includes a mix of 20th- and 21st-century artists, from Yves Klein to Loris Gréaud, Barnett Newman, and Robert Malaval. Le Minh notes that the most inventive portraits come from the Surrealist era, and group photos, once common, are now nearly extinct. The work carries a humorous, ironic tone, subtly mocking the notion that an artist's portrait reveals the key to their work, while still expressing genuine fascination with the images.