Dough Portraits

This visually stunning, hilarious and outlandish book of photography presents Danish performance and conceptual artist Søren Dahlgaard's ongoing series of 'Dough Portraits', in which he creates absurdist portraits of people with their heads encased in dough. Since 2008 he has photographed more than 2,000 sitters of all ages and backgrounds in diverse settings all over the world. Collaboration, process and performance are as much elements of the work as the finished image itself, with each participant 'co-creating' their own portrait, first by kneading the dough, then by placing it on their head or having it put in place by others, and then by carefully selecting a pose - all before of an audience of amused or bemused onlookers. This book reproduces in lavish detail selected portraits from all the main projects in the series, alongside photos and stills of the shoots as they took place. Commentaries by some of those who commissioned the work as well as participants and witnesses recount their experiences, and reflect on the various aesthetic, ethical and social issues raised by Dahlgaard's transformation of this everyday material into the stuff of art.