Replica

Featuring Rita Lino Words by Nastasia Khmelnitski

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Replica, as Rita Lino puts it herself, is a 0.2 version or extension to William Mortensen’s 'The Model: A Book on the Problems of Posing' (1937). While Mortensen, a celebrated American photographer, part of the pictorialism movement, focused on conceptualizing the approach to light and posing the model, Rita Lino offers a distinct angle to view her work.

By building a new relationship between the photographer and the model, Rita redefines self-portraiture and disconnects herself from the image, presenting A BODY as a mere tool that assists an artist in reaching her goal. “We are or I am so obsessed with the Self that my work is becoming ME when, in fact, my work is an extension of myself, not me.” — Rita reveals. Replica features a narrative supported by images and text written by Brad Feuerhelm, who explains that Rita “has self-identified a need to remove herself as a representation and has instead found currency in reducing her own body to an object.”

Rita Lino is a Portuguese photographer currently living in Berlin. Replica is her 2nd book after Entartete (2015), in which the artist is present in a more personal manner as her authentic self. With Replica, Rita redefines the subject and creates a switch from a personalized lens applied to a model to a disconnected, at least emotionally, presence of a model in front of a camera reduced to a state of an object.

This is our second interview with Rita, in which we focus on the production and work on Replica. We speak with Rita about the challenge to find a printer and her recent travel to Istanbul due to the scarcity of paper supply in Europe. We discuss her collaboration with Brad Feuerhelm and her recent fascination with black and white photography.

Purchase your copy of Replica here

Publisher Art Paper Editions Designed by Jurgen Maelfeyt Edited by Rita Lino Text by Brad Feuerhelm

Printrun 1000 copies 

120 Pages

16x23 cm

Hard cover

‘Printing was a challenge, not only because it's the real deal (no mistake), but because there is a problem with the paper supply.’

Hi Rita, congratulations on the release of the new book Replica! Tell about your experience of printing it and your recent trip to Istanbul. What were the most memorable parts and the most challenging ones?  

Thank you so much! Printing was a challenge, not only because it's the real deal (no mistake), but because there is a problem with the paper supply, so Jurgen Maelfeyt (APE) and I had to jump on an airplane and get to the only place that could help us out, which happened to be in Istanbul, shoutout to Ufuk to make it happen. Things were done as they should be, just a bit more rushed because of the deadlines. It was fun, and I got to learn so much about paper, since the book has three different types.

‘I wanted to take my time experimenting, trying, reading, and making sure that it will be something new for me and all book lovers.’

It is your fourth book, followed by All The Lovers (2012), Entartete (2015), and Kingdom (2018). Replica is very different in the atmosphere, the approach to creating an image, and self-staging, which became more complicated. Each book becomes a new way to reveal yourself to the audience — the real and the staged. How do you think Replica is different in terms of the experience of working on it and the central theme from your other books? 

I would say that this is my 2nd book. The other two were more zine-based. Kingdom is definitely a zine. I wanted to do something different, more project-based, and research. I wanted to take my time experimenting, trying, reading, and making sure that it will be something new for me and all book lovers. I think these days we all should be responsible for production, spending.... etc. With Replica, I wanted to give an experience, not just visual but physical. I wanted to create a book object, a photo book that is an extension of a bigger project, which includes a video, a sculpture, several types of cameras, film, digital, etc.

When presenting the book on Instagram, you chose to add the following quote: 

“We are so prone to assume and give full consideration to the personal and emotional qualities of the model that may be hard for us to forget these things and regard her simple as a machine that needs adjustment.” (William Mortensen, The Model: A Book on the Problems of Posing 1937).

And in the opening pages of the book to start with A Guide to the Manufacture of Successful Portrait Posing In Modern Times. I feel this is probably one of the best descriptions of the way to look at how you present your body as a piece of art, each time reimagining it in a different way and from a different perspective intriguing the viewer to raise questions about themselves. What was your process of working with Brad Feuerhelm on the text? Why did you choose to rethink William Mortensen’s approach? 

I found that sentence fascinating. There's something cruel and dark in Mortensen's eyes: the model's emotionality is 'irrelevant,' the model is a "machine that needs adjustment," an "object that MUST REMAIN in a motionless approximation to death." Something so grotesque to make such beautiful images (in my opinion, as it's not a discussion on what is 'beauty,' otherwise we'll need many, many pages, and we'll still not get to any point). He saw women and men in front of his lens as supple clay to form the image and addressed the body's concerns as plastic, to be articulated only by the operator's intention.

‘We are or I am so obsessed with the Self that my work is becoming ME when, in fact, my work is an extension of myself, not me.’

I thought this was the premise: I need to 'cut myself in pieces' and present my body as A BODY, as a tool that I worked with for so many years. I felt a relief when I found out "how to pose the model." We are or I am so obsessed with the Self that my work is becoming ME when, in fact, my work is an extension of myself, not me. This explanation was not so much to me but the viewers: a presentation of me as an artist and not as a 'selfie maker.'

Working with Brad Feuerhelm was a pleasure. He was the one who introduced me to Mortessen's work, I can't remember how but it was through him, and once I decided to do this 0.2 version of "how to pose the model," I knew Brad had to be the one writing in the book. Lucky me, he accepted : ) I also knew that I wanted the text to be part of the book in a fluid way, incorporated in it, not just in the end, as usually happens with photo books. So we decided to go through the main chapters of the original book and recreate the main focus of each one.

‘I learned how to detach myself from the act of photographing, so in part, I matured — I don't need to be in my room alone to photograph myself, I own it now, and it feels liberating.’

To continue the subject of the body, you decided to take a more scientific approach towards its use in the frame and the meaning that comes with it. What were some of your revelations from this new way of working and using masks, plaster, paint, measuring the body and its parts? What did you discover in the process? 

Yes, I want to be cold, calculated, and somehow closer to reality than ever, even if that reality was manufactured. Besides, having the body parts and all the real measures, I'm ready to build a Replica, haha. It was a pleasure, probably I'm repeating myself here, but it was definitely fun and new to work with all these materials and some of the time with people on set. I learned how to detach myself from the act of photographing, so in part, I matured — I don't need to be in my room alone to photograph myself, I own it now, and it feels liberating. Besides all of that, I discovered that I'm pretty much into black and white photography at the moment. I never thought that I would be. I always photographed in color, and now I'm just in love with all the grays.