What does it mean to appropriate a work? Where is the boundary between fiction and reality and where do these two overlap? These are the complex questions photographer Sandro Miller wants to investigate with his work. At the same time, his photographs pay tribute to great photographers who inspired him, gave him footing and enabled him to pursue his own creative goals. Irving Penn, Patrick Demarchelier, Bert Stern, Diane Arbus and Gordon Parks have all influenced his view of the world.
Sandro Miller does not celebrate the entire oeuvres of these artists, but specific iconic images that have left a lasting impression on him. He decided to recreate these images with the complicity of his great friend, the actor John Malkovich. They engaged in a kind of role-play, but seriously because it also raises fundamental questions about the creative process and the role of appropriation.
To stay as close to reality as possible, they stage the images with the same tools that the photographers of the originals had at their disposal. Each picture starts with a meticulously reconstructed setting with similar, identical or sometimes even recreated objects. This is followed by the lengthy make-up process that Malkovich patiently endures to become the original. The shooting takes place in just a few minutes, like a kind of thrust linking them closely. Sandro Miller achieves extremely delicate levels of perception, nuances that are almost imperceptible but still make all the difference. Ultimately, the original and the replica overlap, like two superimposed holograms, doppelgangers staring at each other.
'Malkovich - Then came John' is a special collector's edition because of its content and form. Never before has a screen been integrated into the cover of a book. In addition, the edition is signed by Sandro Miller and John Malkovich and comes with a specially designed steel book stand, a USB stick with four short films and a portrait photograph of Malkovich, taken by Sandro Miller in honour of this project.
