Claudia Huidobro

Tout contre

A room in a castle in the south of France, some objects found there and a camera with automatic release is enough for Claudia Huidobro to construct a photo series where she reinterprets her own identity.

Huidobro spent years working as a model. After becoming an artist she made her own body the primary instrument of her art, but deprived it of any external artificiality. She photographs herself without make-up, in a very simple dress, and refrains from using digital special effects or retouching when processing the images. All this is contrary to her professional experience acquired at fashion shows for great couturiers like Jean Paul Gaultier and Mario Valentino, and at photo sessions for celebrated fashion photographers.

The ‘Tout contre’ project can be seen as a documentation of performance. Entering a state similar to trance, the artist compels her body to fuse with the background and turns it into an abstraction, then launches into a skirmish with space — and by her own muscle power she appears to lift ceilings and push away the walls, recapturing her own free space.

Based on a text by Natasha Wolinski