Andreas Roseneder snow-self-portrait temporary sculpture 2010
Lovis Corinth death & artist, danse macabre 1921
self-portrait
a self-portrait is a reference of the artist to the nearest – & himself inherent – appearance of form of human life. reflecting the meanings of life on the canvas of his own face he seeks sympathy or rousing attention of other beholders: best case the mirror image of his own scarfaced „drawn by life“ human facade as understandable interpretation of general life´s circumstances.
the self-portrait could be seen as an effective attempt of an artist for attentiveness or advertising himself, too. – or the artist´s focusing the status quo as biographical notice of his artificial work.
finally artists often start an obsession at the end of their life & carreer in reflection of themselves faced with nearing death; they look back & bring up central themes of their artwork in confrontation with final selection of human destiny, a last stock-taking under supervision of Father Time. Death haunts everybody, even the beauty.
in that case I just felt the childish longing to form my environment without implements but my body & its characteristic features. my only thought was to captivate the fate of melting away like snow at the moment. just me, alone, fading away in natural surroundings, that made the game more interesting.
but curious I am, next day I could not help to return to the scene of yesterday´s performance: the night´s wind had changed the prints & inserted them as elements into natural environment. – I cannot deny I felt in selfish vanity importance to save some images for posterity by shooting some photos of the scene.
Lovis Corinth, 1896. Flesh and bone
see also post: mein flecken land
poesis & crisis 
2 Comments
So mysterious, is this done with a long rod? There are no footprints or disturbance in the surrounding snow. Can you provide the approximate dimensions? I, so, love this idea!
strength & balance – that´s all behind the mystery. go down on your knees & let your trunk with head slowly subside into the snow. after a while you feel melting the snow on your face´s skin move back slowly & carefully again without help of your hands -. a question of your abdominal muscle & ability to keep your body in balance. – needs some preparing exercises – there were some failures before. – & I have trained my lateral abdominus since 4 and a half years… Lovis Corinth as he appears on his selfportrait with skeletton would not be able to do that I think!
the rest of traces clears away the wind you must be lucky is not blowing too strong to destroy your print over night.
you see: dimension 1:1, really self-made portrait – no tools