Self Portrait 365 / Part 1
Self Portrait 365 reflects a collective interest by artists in the 1970s to mine their own experiences and personal identity through photographic self-portraits and diaries. For Ohara, this took the form of a yearlong exercise in which he paired a daily self-portrait he called “my inward view of the day” with an outward view of the world as he saw it. Composed of 35mm contact prints, the images are connected via a snaking accordion fold in a unique miniature album. Like many Japanese photographers, Ohara chose the book as his primary format, transforming his record of daily life into a sculptural form to mark the duration of a year and sparking a practice he would continue off and on for the rest of his life.
Artwork Details
- Title: Self Portrait 365 / Part 1
- Artist: Ken Ohara (American, born Tokyo, 1942)
- Date: 1970
- Medium: Gelatin silver prints
- Dimensions: Image: 15/16 × 1 3/8 in. (2.4 × 3.5 cm), each
Overall: 2 in. × 45 ft. 10 1/2 in. (5.1 × 1398.3 cm) - Classifications: Photographs, Albums
- Credit Line: Purchase, Twentieth-Century Photography Fund, 2024
- Object Number: 2024.490
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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