NANCY BURSON
Since the inception of her artistic career, Nancy Burson has been interested in the interaction between art and science and she’s among the first artists to apply digital technology to the genre of photographic portraiture. She can be considered the “Pioneer of computer-generated portraits”.
Her work is unique because she was the first to introduce composite portraits to the electronic age. She is best known for her pioneering work in morphing technologies: using computer programs to change or layer photos to show a new aspect of age, race or character of the original subject. Not only that: it is also about interventions based on the fusion of two or more images through a deforming system that works changing its reality, aging and rejuvenating photographs and thus projecting a portrait into the future or into the past. Digitally combining and manipulating images of often well-known individuals, including movie stars and world leaders, Burson examines political issues, gender, race, and standards of beauty.
In collaboration with researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Burson began to produce computer-generated composite portraits in the late 1970s to early 1980s. In 1981, she developed a software that could be used to “age” a human face, still used by FBI to help locate victims of child abduction.
NANCY BURSON, Composites 2018.
“Nancy Burson is a photographer who works with concepts and a conceptual artist who works with photographs. While it was not Burson’s intention, her fabrications challenged fundamental assumptions about the nature of photography and still do. Unlike a portrait that draws meaning from its connection to a real person, Burson’s pictures are simulacra; forms without substance that put a face on abstract concepts, personalizing the impersonal, and embodying the intangible.”
RECENT WORKS
2016 – 2018
Trump / Putin
(Time Magazine’s Cover – July, 19, 2018)
2018
color print on watercolor photo paper
cm 31.1 x 24.1 ca. / inches 12.2 x 9.5 ca.
Trump / Putin
(Time Magazine’s Cover – July, 19, 2018)
2018
Trump as five different races
(Black, Asian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Indian)
2016
color print on watercolor photo paper
cm 90 x 100 ca. / inches 35.4 x 39.4 ca.
VIDEO INSTALLATIONS
Trump/Putin
2019
video projection
Love Above All Else
2019
video projection
Light the world with Love
video projection
Happier Icons
2015
video projection
EARLY WORKS
1976 – 2000
4 Vogue Models
1989
vintage gelatin silver print
cm 35 x 37 ca. / inches 13.8 x 14.6 ca.
Androgyny (6 men + 6 women)
1983
vintage gelatin silver print
cm 49.8 x 49 ca. / inches 19.6 x 12.3 ca.
Five Self Portraits at Ages 18, 30, 45, 60 & 70
1976
5 vintage gelatin silver prints
cm 83 x 27 ca. / inches 32.7 x 10.6 ca.
First and Second Beauty Composites
(B. Davis, A. Hepburn, G. Kelly, S. Loren, M. Monroe)
(J. Fonda, J. Bisset, D. Keaton, B. Shields, M. Streep)
1982
2 vintage gelatin silver print
cm 48.3 x 26 ca. / inches 19 x 10.2 ca. (dyptich)
First and Second Male Movie Star Composite
(C. Grant, J. Stewart, G. Cooper, C. Gable, H. Bogart)
(R. Gere, C. Reeve, M. Gibson, W. Beatty, R. Redford)
1983
2 vintage gelatin silver print
cm 44.4 x 28 ca. / inches 17.5 x 11 ca.
Big Brother
(Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Hitler and Khomeini)
1983
vintage gelatin silver print
cm 52 x 45 ca. / inches 20.8 x 17.7 ca.
Warhead I
(Regan, Brezhnev, Thatcher, Mitterand, Deng)
1982
vintage gelatin silver print
cm 39 x 38.5 ca. / inches 15.3 x 15.2 ca.
10 Businessmen from Goldman Sachs
1982
vintage gelatin silver print
cm 32 x 35 ca. / inches 12.6 x 13.8 ca.
Etan Patz
Age 6 to 14 (dyptich)
1984
2 vintage gelatin silver print
cm 67.5 x 41 ca. / inches 26.6 x 16 ca.
Cog and Dat
1983
vintage gelatin silver print
cm 40.5 x 37 ca. / inches 15.9 x 14.6 ca.
Lion / Lamb
1983
vintage gelatin silver print
cm 39 x 39 ca. / inches 15.3 x 15.3 ca.
Baby Elvis
1988
vintage gelatin silver print
cm 32 x 34 ca. / inches 12.6 x 13.4 ca.
Baby Marilyn
1988
vintage gelatin silver print
cm 32 x 34 ca. / inches 12.6 x 13.4 ca.
Catwoman
(Self-portrait with cat)
1985
vintage gelatin silver print
cm ca. / inches ca.
Mankind
1983-85
vintage gelatin silver print
cm 35 x 36.5 ca. / inches 13.8 x 14.4 ca.
The Newmans
1984
vintage gelatin silver print
cm 38.3 x 38.3 ca. / inches 15 x 15 ca.
Womankind
2000
color print
cm ca. / inches ca.
Mankind
2000
color print
cm ca. / inches ca.
Womankind / Mankind
2000
color print
cm ca. / inches ca.
Aged Elvis
1986
vintage gelatin silver print
cm 26 x 32 ca. / inches 10.2 x 12.6 ca.
Making Money
1984
vintage gelatin silver print
cm 34 x 29 ca. / inches 13.4 x 11.4 ca.
Michael Jackson /Madonna
1991
vintage gelatin silver print
cm 20 x 30 ca. / inches 7.8 x 11.8 ca
POLAROIDS COLLECTION
Aged JFK
1987
unique vintage spectra polaroid
cm 22.5 x 22.5 ca. / inches 8.9 x 8.9 ca.
Prog Fig
(Kermit and Miss Piggy)
1985
unique vintage spectra polaroid
cm 22.5 x 22.5 ca. / inches 8.9 x 8.9 ca.
Mankind
1984
unique vintage spectra polaroid
cm 22.5 x 22.5 ca. / inches 8.9 x 8.9 ca.
#5 Cézanne / Van Gogh
1986
unique vintage spectra polaroid
cm ca. / inches ca.
Aged Madonna
1986
unique vintage spectra polaroid
cm 22.5 x 22.5 ca. / inches 8.9 x 8.9 ca.
Untitled
1988
unique vintage polaroid
cm 54.7 x 70 ca. / inches 21.5 x 27.5 ca.
Untitled
1988
unique vintage polaroid
cm 54.7 x 70 ca. / inches 21.5 x 27.5 ca.
COMPOSITE PAINTINGS
#5 Cézanne / Van Gogh
1986
color inkjet print
cm ca. / inches ca.
#42 Monet / Pissarro
1986
color inkjet print
cm ca. / inches ca.
#20 Picasso / De Kooning
1986
color inkjet print
cm ca. / inches ca.
#51 Rothko / Gottlieb / Newman
1986
color inkjet print
cm ca. / inches ca.
