Pigment inks, white-out tape and dirt on cotton paper
111.5 x 195.0 (cm)
43.9 x 76.8 (inch)
The series of "Sticky Tape Transfers" arises out of Mikhael Subotzky’s continuing attempts to understand the relationship between the physical and representational structures of images. Much of his recent work has been concerned with the nature of the representational surfaces of photography. "Sticky Tape Transfer 10, After Bosch" was made while investigating Bosch’s "Garden of Earthly Delights" for a larger work. This "Sticky Tape" version censors the eyes of every living creature in a high-resolution print of Bosch’s painting.
The inkjet print of the source image, once reworked and censored using white-out tape was laid on the artist’s studio floor and the entire surface covered with tape. After a number of days the tape is ripped from the surface of the print – a process of separation which is fundamental to the works and which expresses Subotzky’s unease with the production of “finished” images.
The separation of the ink from its paper support renders the representational half of the image delicate and fragile and does away with the support and frame as traditional anchors of images. The fragility of the image is held together and bandaged by the strips of “sticky tape” which form a new barrier between the viewer and the image material, albeit one that often appears fragile and permeable itself.
