Thomas Florschuetz

Diptychon # 33

1992

Thomas Florschuetz recently emigrated from East Germany and now lives in West Berlin. He made his first photographic self-portraits in 1982 and only last year began incorporating color into his work. In his earlier, multi-paneled [sic] black-and-white pieces, photographs of body parts are arranged in jarring relationships evocative of Neo-Expressionist art. Florschutz continues to use himself as the model in the new works, but here his presence is reduced to fragments of his hand and face, which are integrated into oversized organic anatomies that challenge the limitations of the term “portraiture.” Thomas Florschuetz deliberately selects artificial hues for the backgrounds of his images, shifting the delicate color scale of the skin tones in each photograph. By photographically altering the size and color of his own body, Florschuetz creates forms that range from chaotic to classical.