Artworks

Paul Mpagi Sepuya

American, b. 1982

Darkroom Mirror Study, or Aperture, 2017

Archival pigment print

51 x 34 in. (129.54 x 86.36 cm)

© Paul Mpagi Sepuya. Grinnell College Museum of Art Collection (2021.025)

In this photograph, the face of the figure in the image, who is in fact the artist himself, is turned away from us, while the tool of his art — the camera — perched upon his shoulder, is aimed directly at us. We are exposed to the camera (Sepuya’s gaze-by-proxy) yet his face (his identity, if you will) is denied to us. This mirrors the ultimate effect once his photographs of his subject matter (implied to be us in this image) is produced as a work of art. If the camera in this image were recording an image of you, your face would appear in the final photograph, yet the artist’s own would not. Still, it would be considered his photograph, and valued as such in our museum’s collection. So who is the photographer’s real subject?