On the Beach, Pensacola, FL
Photographer Ofer Wolberger
Today I went to see this exhibition from C/O Berlin Life with Maggie by Ofer Wolberger at the Goethe Institute of Stockholm, and I read the interview made by Jennifer Crowley – or rather part of this – from the book Talents 17 - Life with Maggie.
It seems as such an interesting idea, to use this mask of his wife’s properties, that she got from her parents collections of masks once, and let this mask from the 1930-1940´s have its own life in our time.
He is making an avatar of this I think. This is what I do with my avatars in Second Life. Liza loves the 1920`s and she hates all of this new era’s stuff, but she tries to fit in. Just like “Maggie”, as the photographer names the character he is making of the mask to let it become alive again in our time.
I specifically love the scene, the photography, of “Maggie” at the beach. To me she wants to be there and swim like the other guests on the beach – but she doesn’t want to be undressed or dressed in bikini. She makes her own way a bathing suit – a swimming suit- of her nightgown or a short dress. So this way she is on the beach as she used to be in the 1930 or 1940´s maybe. But she at least tries her outmost to fit in, and this she also does.
When you are meeting an environment that isn’t yours, but still is supposed to be, you try to make the best of this situation. I think “Maggie” is excellent in adjusting^^^
Am looking forward to follow Ofer Wolberger in this project. He tells in the book that he want to see “Maggie” grew old. So it will be continued.
It is his wife that supplies “Maggie” with the body that carries the mask of her around and of course she will be elder day by day.
This makes a nice portrait of a couple that works together and definitely plan to be old together too.
If I ever interview them I will have to ask about this.
I saw nothing of the wife in the part of the interview I read from this book, more then the photographer mentioning her as the owner of the mask and as his wife and telling us that she is the model - the person that brings “Maggie” into life by posing her in the situations she is placed within. Her husband does tell us she make an impact in evolving “Maggie” though, since she is part of her, and he does tell us about her by her name, of course, she is Billie. But maybe she is interviewed too in the book, somewhere. I havent read it through yet.
One charming detail is when Ofer Wolberger mention that “Maggie” lives her own life in a way too... as he thinks sometimes “this Maggie would like to have a vacation picture of”... and this way he is givin her a bit freedoom beside his owns wishes for his pictures.
I believe the characters we create - if we let them free.... They will amaze us.
Maybe you got to be an artist yourself to understand this sentence...
/Nine
C/O Berlin
Talents 17 Life with Maggie - The book
Life with Maggie - The Project
Link to Goethe Institute of Stockholm for page in swedish
