Media artist Ilse Haider works at the intersection of photography and sculpture. Her appropriated photographic portraits of media stars, celebrities from the silver screen and the runway, or from the international art scene, are complex constructs in which the familiar, media-friendly portrait is subverted, altered, and augmented.

She subjects the celebrity photos—published thousands of times—to a process of transformation and reinterpretation. The models’ skillfully rehearsed poses, their carefully adjusted facial expressions, and the cosmetically corrected demeanor of the original photos are transported into a new sphere of perception.

“I’m not interested in the perfect, smooth faces—I’m interested in what lies behind them: the political activism of, say, an actress, her commitment to humanity or justice, and also the fragility and depth hidden behind a façade,” says the artist about her selection and editing of images.

Ilse Haider’s portrait objects are one-of-a-kind pieces in which photography and darkroom work play an important role; they thrive on the contrast between light and dark, light and shadow, visibility and disappearance; but they are also sculptural objects that achieve a relief-like quality and three-dimensional presence through the addition of wood and rattan, color and hatching, dense material, and a fixed photograph.