Stamp Archive

Description and interpretation of points opposite 2 contains 1,163 photographs of faces taken from the “Workshop” archives. The stamps – and, naturally, the subsequent prints – all originated from these photographs. A stamp typically certifies the authenticity, validity or identity of document of various types, photographs, artworks, etc. 

But when the photograph of a person becomes a stamp, the stamp enters a kind of limbo; it loses its functionality, despite retaining – as an object – the memory of its use. The act of stamping, however, remains unchanged in terms of both intensity and process. You ink the stamp by slamming it into the ink pad and then slam in again, hard, onto the paper this time, to make a print. Except that, in this case, lifting it up reveals the face of a person who has certified themselves. 

G.H.