"Schule II"

Klasse 5b
B0563

gelatin silver print

signed, titled, dated and numbered on verso

At first sight, the photographs seem to show blurred single portraits. In fact, each of them is the picture of a whole school class. Contrary to conventional class photos where students are shown seating and standing next to each other, Michael Wesely superimposed the faces of all students of one class by means of multiple exposure. Therefore, not only one face per photo is visible, but the sum of about 30 faces, which in the end still look like one single face. Even more: Although the shooting technique is always the same, interestingly, individual group faces emerge, giving each class its very own face. The pictures thus not only show the fascination of a photographic technique creating its own reality by generating a face that does not exist. They also demonstrate that groups that spend a lot of time together take on individual features in order to become distinguishable from all other similar groups.