Deconstruction

Veruschka was the very first supermodel. As the one personality who is inseparable from our appreciation of her body, Veruschka (whose real name is Vera Lehndorff) examines her body in relation to beauty, through transfigurations. She wants us to see that there is a major difference between “transform” and “transfigure”: The latter goes much deeper, is more radical, and is ultimately about transcendence.

Susan Sontag introduced the photo book by Versuschka entitled: Transfigurations. A stunning collection of painted images. Some interesting quotes by Sontag in “Fragments of an Aesthetic of Melancholy” by Susan Sontag. The intro the the book.

“…desires contrasting, contradictory, impacted, immobilizing. The desire to become fully visible, to be seen (at last) as one is, to be honest, to be unmasked. The desire to hide, to be camouflaged. To be elsewhere. Other.”

“The desire to be stripped down, to be naked, to be concealed, to disappear, to be only ones skin, to mortify the skin, to petrify the body, to become fixed, to become dematerialized, a ghost, to become matter only, inorganic matter, to stop, to die.”

I have bought the book “Trasfigurations” second hand from Amazon…  Not an easy get.