Stefan De Jaeger
Stefan De Jaeger, Stéphane et Stéphane at Carefree, Arizona; 1996.
Polaroid collage, 38” x 19 5/8”. Collection of Stéphane Janssen
Janssen met photographer Stefan De Jaeger through a mutual friend and invited De Jaeger to visit him in Beverly Hills, and there began the ongoing project that comprises the work of the Connivences exhibition.
De Jaeger’s method brings together the immediacy that Polaroid creates — from shutter to print in a few moments — with a sense of motion and change. He was the first artist to use Polaroid to make serious photographic works.
De Jaeger takes Polaroids of parts of his subject’s body, a process that reflects the body in fragments and in motion since the artist builds the portrait piece by piece. The point of view shifts as the artist points the camera down at the feet, rises to focus on the hands and again to look at the face.
The work retains the spontaneity and sense of casualness suggested by the use of Polaroid. De Jaeger builds the image over a period during which the model may move slightly and shift position. The light also may change during the duration of the shoot. He then assembles the Polaroid snapshots to form a composite image, allowing the white border of each picture to create a grid. Each unit functions as part of a whole, but simultaneously each is somewhat isolated by the shift in point of view, temporal disjunction and a white frame. The portraits convey a contemporary notion of the self as a protean being, moving and changing even as it is being defined.