“Compose your own PORTRAIT.” Worldwide

Homepage of FIFTY (ONE) SELF PORTRAITS

Publication of the series ARTIST PORTRAITS, 2022

With “FIFTY ONE (SELF) PORTRAITS” Thilo Hoffmann invited contemporary artists to create a PORTRAIT of themselves. “You at your location, in your time and world. Compose your own PORTRAIT.” These were the only directions given to the artists who were open to working with the Swiss based multimedia orchestrator. 

Only one parameter was added to the work: The person in the portrait is half the size of the picture. The setting that each artist chose is thus gaining momentum, giving the viewer a glimpse into the portrayee’s world. 

Hoffmann dedicated 14 years to assembling “ FIFTY ONE (SELF) PORTRAITS”, and approached artists, traveled all around the world to meet with them and take their portraits. The images are accompanied by texts narrating the depicted scenes and written by authors chosen by the artists or by the artists themselves.

The result is not only a publication and an exhibition, it is also a grand piece of art in itself.

For more details about the FIFTY ONE (SELF) PORTRAITS, visit the website of Artist Portraits.

List of the artist portraits featured in the publication:

Thomas Hirschhorn, Pierre Bismuth, Sophie Calle, Olaf Breuning, Lawrence Weiner, Gregory Green, Mary Heilmann, Susan Hiller, Peter Joseph, Zilla Leutenegger, Ingeborg Lüscher, Mike Nelson, Tony Oursler, Philip Pearlstein, Ben Vautier, Roman Signer, Annelies Strba, Richard Wentworth, Huma Bhabha, Shannon Plumb, Silvie Defraoui, Lindsay Seers, Mona Hatoum, John Armleder, Ruedi Bechtler, Christian Jankowski, Cerith Wyn Evans, Diego Perrone, Adrian Schiess, Ursula Hodel, Ilona Ruegg, Una Szeemann, Karin Sander, Markus Weiss, Clarina Bezzola, Mario Airo, Laurie Anderson, Ursula Rydingsvard, Mélanie Matranga, Nic Hess, Niele Toroni, Not Vital, Gianni Motti, Severin Müller, Willie Doherty, Ulla von Brandenburg, Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzinger, Beni Bischof and Alicia Velazquez.

Some portraits from this series were taken by Jonas Hildalgo

The curatorial project management is overseen by Silvia Converso