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conceptual portraits, DNA (Kevin Allan Clarke 1953\u00ad) is an American artist\/photographer who was born in Brooklyn, New York. He is best known for his 1984 photography book The Red Couch<\/a>, A Portrait of America and for his conceptual portraits that combine a metaphoric photographic image with the subject\u2019s DNA sequence, known as DNA Portraits.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Early life and influences<\/strong> Kevin Clarke was born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in the NY area. An early family influence was his grandfather Albert Allan MacDonald, a cabinet maker from Australia. Family ties to ancestor John Evelyn, (1620\u2014\u00ad1706), an English writer, gardener, and diaristinflamed Clarke\u2019s imagination. Kevin Clarke\u2019s father Hugh Allan Clarke\u2019s (1919\u2014\u00ad2012) great, great, etc uncle, Robert Evelyn was John Evelyn\u2019s brother and a founder of the colony of Barbados.<\/p>\n Kevin Clarke first visited family in Barbados in 1969, three years after independence from Great Britain.He attended The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art where his principle professors were Hans Haacke, Christopher Wilmarth, and Dore Ashton. Prof Haacke had close ties to the Kunstakademie D\u00fcsseldorf and hosted visits by their professors, including Klaus Rinke and Joseph Beuys, who exerted a strong influence. He was employed as an assistant to the sculptor Sylvia Stone and her husband, painter Al Held to support himself while studying.<\/p>\n He graduated with a BFA in sculpture in 1976. He became a member of Artists Meeting for Cultural Change and worked on an anticatalog, a publication protesting the political nature of The Whitney Museum\u2019s Bicentenniel exhibitions 300 Years of American Art and 200 Years of American SculptureAn employment with artist Yoko Ono in 1975 (Pyramids) led Ono to send him to the Yucatan, Mexico to photograph and study the Pyramids. He suffered a near fatal appendicitis attack and was hospitalized for 30 days, barely saved by a horse shot of penicillin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Basel<\/strong><\/p>\n After recuperating for several months Clarke moved to Basel Switzerland where he co-founded Das Kollektive with 4 Basel artists. The group did happenings and exhibited a collaborative piece at the Kunsthalle Basel in 1976. Clarke repeatedly photographed streetscapes in Basel for an exhibition at Galerie Stampa and was arrested more than fifty times and deported to Germany. The secretive Swiss Banks did not appreciate being included in his project.\u00a0He was hired by KD Wolff of Verlag Roter Stern, Frankfurt am Main, to transport films of the German 60\u2019s movement throughout Germany for viewings at Universities but disembarked from the project upon arriving in Kassel, which was preparing the Documenta 6 exhibition, Kunst Und Medien.<\/p>\n Kassel<\/strong><\/p>\n Clarke organized a group of students, who attracted their professors at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. Professors Floris Neus\u00fcss and G\u00fcnter Rambow were leaders in photography in Kassel. Kevin Clarke and Horst Wackerbarth, along with H.P. and Ulla Baumann, Lucy Bunse, and Michael Goos formed the collective Stadtzeitung und Verlag in 1977 and published the anti catalog to Documenta 6 titled Kunst Und Medien, Materialien Zur Documenta 6. The spirited catalog sold over 44,000 copies during the 100 days of the Documenta. Clarke conducted interviews with numerous participants and became close to Jochen Gerz and to Joseph Beuys, who sponsored Clarke\u2019s membership in the International Artists Gremium, which met in Berlin in 1977.<\/p>\n Berlin<\/strong><\/p>\n Clarke arrived in Berlin at the end of 1977 and began photographing the salespeople in their environments in Berlin\u2019s famous department store, the KaDeWe, Department Store of the West. His book Kaufhauswelt was published in 1980 by Schirmer + Mosel Verlag, Munich. Photographs from the book were exhibited at the Fankfurter Kunstverein later that year.<\/p>\n Wikipedia Deutschland:<\/p>\n Kevin Clarke (*1953 in New York City) ist ein zeitgen\u00f6ssischer Fotograf<\/em><\/p>\n Leben und Werk<\/p>\n Kevin Clarke wurde 1953 in New York City geboren. 1976 schlo\u00df er ein Studium der Bildhauerei an der Cooper Union in New York bei Hans Haacke und Christopher Wilmarth ab.<\/p>\n Anschlie\u00dfend verbrachte er vier Jahre in der Schweiz und in Deutschland, wo er an konzeptuellen fotografischen Projekten und Ausstellungen arbeitete.<\/p>\n W\u00e4hrend der Documenta 6 nahm er an der von Joseph Beuys geleiteten Freien Universit\u00e4t teil. Dazu ver\u00f6ffentlichte Clarke 1986 \u201eKunst und Medien\u201c, eine Art \u201eAnti-Katalog\u201c zur Documenta 6, der in den Verkaufszahlen den offiziellen Katalog weit \u00fcbertraf, weil er vor allem unter jungen Leuten und Studenten sehr beliebt war.<\/p>\n 1980 hatte er bereits den Bildband \u201eKaufhauswelt\u201c bei Schirmer und Mosel ver\u00f6ffentlicht, eine soziologische Studie in schwarz-wei\u00df Fotografien \u00fcber die Angestellten des KadeWe im damaligen West-Berlin, wof\u00fcr er den Kodak Book Award gewann.<\/p>\n Darauf folgte 1984 \u201eThe Red Couch. A Portrait of America\u201c, ver\u00f6ffentlicht bei Alfred van der Marck Editions\/Harper & Row. Mit diesem Projekt, bei dem Clarke bekannte und unbekannte Amerikaner\/Innen auf einer roten Couch portr\u00e4tierte, erlangte er weltweit Bekanntheit. Sein Kollege Horst Wackerbarth, den er zur Realisierung des Projektes herangezoge hatte, beanspruchte sp\u00e4ter die Idee f\u00fcr sich, unterlag jedoch in der folgenden gerichtlichen Auseinandersetzung. \u201eThe Red Couch\u201c umfa\u00dft rund einhundert Farbfotografien und stellt ein Profil der amerikanischen Bev\u00f6lkerung in ihrer ganzen Heterogenit\u00e4t dar. Jeder Port\u00e4tierte mu\u00dfte sich auf die gleiche rote Couch setzten, die Clarke zu diesem Zweck \u00fcber den ganzen Kontinent transportierte. Durch die rote Couch als immer wiederkehrendes Motiv entsteht eine komische, fast surrealistische Wirkung, die an Buster Keaton erinnert. Die Fotoserie wurde vielfach ausgestellt und ver\u00f6ffentlicht, als Motiv wurde sie in der Werbung und in den Medien zitiert.<\/p>\n Ende der achtziger Jahre kam Clarke in Kontakt zu der Firma Applied Biosystems in Kalifornien, die grade an der wissenschaftlichen Entwicklung des Analyseverfahrens des menschlichen Genoms arbeiteten. Clarke bat die Genforscher, einen non-komparativen, individual-spezifischen Seqenzierungsprozess zu entwickeln. Sie entschieden sich f\u00fcr die Darstellung der polymorphen HLA-DQA-1 Alpha-Region und benutzten Clarkes Blut f\u00fcr diese Experimente: er war somit der erste, dessen DNS-Sequenz entschl\u00fcsselt wurde. Inspiriert davon, realisierte er im Jahre 1988 ein Selbstportr\u00e4t, indem er die graphische Darstellung seiner DNS-Sequenz in Form von Buchstabenfolgen mit einem Foto zu einer Montage verschmelzen lie\u00df. Es sollte das erste Portr\u00e4t sein, das er auf diese Weise machen w\u00fcrde.<\/p>\n Anschlie\u00dfend bereiste er die Welt, um eine Serie von Nachtportr\u00e4ts namens \u201eAwe\u201c (Ehrfurcht oder Schauer) zu fotografieren, um sich anschlie\u00dfend wieder seinem Interesse an Genetik zu widmen: Die 1992er Fotoserie \u201eFrom the Blood of Poets\u201c widmete er amerikanischen K\u00fcnstlerfreunden, wie John Cage, Jeff Koons und Richard Milazzo. Die Idee dazu kam ihm bei der Lekt\u00fcre eines Buchs \u00fcber Picassos Leben, bei dem die Gewohnheit von K\u00fcnstlern beschrieben wird, sich nach der Vollendung eines neuen Kunstwerks gemeinsam im Atelier zu treffen, um bei einem Glas Wein die neue Arbeit zu beschreiben.<\/p>\n Clarkes Portr\u00e4ts zeigen keine fotografische Abbildung des dargestellten, sondern intuitiv gew\u00e4hlte Motive – Landschaften und Stadtansichten, Stillleben und Objekte, die Clarke mit dem “Portr\u00e4tierten” assoziierte. Diese Motive kombinierte Clarke mit der graphischen Darstellung der DNS-Sequenz der jeweiligen Person , dargestellt in Form von Buchstabenfolgen oder rhythmischen Kurven. Diese Fotomontage verfremdete Clarke zus\u00e4tzlich durch die Reproduktion im Farbumkehrverfahren.<\/p>\n F\u00fcr das folgende Projekt \u201eThe Invisible Body\u201c, ausgestellt im Museum Wiesbaden, schuf der K\u00fcnstler zwei Serien zu je dreizehn Portr\u00e4ts verschiedener Personen aus New York und Wiesbaden. \u201eThe Invisible Body\u201c ist eine Hommage an das Abendmahl von Leonardo da Vinci: hinsichtlich der Rolle des K\u00fcnstlers als Beobachter einer Stadt und ihrer Menschen, der N\u00e4he zur Naturwissenschaft und der Darstellung einer Gruppe. Clarke entschied sich, analog zu Leonardo ebenfalls dreizehn Personen zu portr\u00e4tieren, wobei die Dreizehnte ein Leitmotiv darstellen sollte. F\u00fcr New York w\u00e4hlte Clarke James D. Watson, den Entdecker der DNS-Struktur der Chromosomen, f\u00fcr Wiesbaden Ute Berger, F\u00f6rdererin experimentieller Kunst. Der Prozess der Auswahl, des Kennenlernens und das Portr\u00e4tieren der Beteiligten nahm geraume Zeit in Anspruch, f\u00fcr Wiesbaden knapp zwei Jahre, denn Clarke besch\u00e4ftigt sich mit seinen Modellen, bis ihm ein Motiv auff\u00e4llt, was ihn zutiefst an diese Person erinnert. Das kann ein vor\u00fcberziehendes Schiff auf dem Rhein genauso sein wie die Struktur einer leergeschleuderten Bienenwabe.<\/p>\n Clarkes letztes New Yorker Projekt galt den Anschl\u00e4gen vom elften September 2001. \u201eMikey Flowers 9\/11\u201c basiert auf Fotos des Betreibers eines gleichnamigen Blumengesch\u00e4fts, der als einer der ersten vor Ort Aufnahmen des kollabierenden World Trade Centers scho\u00df und dabei selbst fast das Leben verloren h\u00e4tte. Clarke verbindet diese Aufnahmen mit den DNA-Strukturen \u00dcberlebender und schafft damit einen optimistischen Gegenentwurf zu jener anderen Anwendung der DNA-Analyse, die verwendet wurde, um die \u00fcber dreitausend Opfer des barbarischen Terroraktes zu identifizieren.<\/p>\n Clarke returned to New York City<\/strong> in the fall of 1980 with his fianc\u00e9e, Susanna Eglsaer, aka the Austrian actress Klara Berg, whom he married in 1982.\u00a0He soon began a series of portraits of New Yorkers sitting on a large red velvet couch he was sleeping on in the studio of the painter Russell Maltz. Clarke was soon joined by his former partner in Kunst Und Medien, Horst Wackerbarth and the duo began to make portraits together based on Clarke\u2019s concept. After four years of difficult collaboration, Alfred van der Marck Editions and Harper & Row published The Red Couch, A Portrait of America (1984) including photographs of Americans from all walks of life sitting on the same couch. Publications including LIFE and the German STERN supported the project. Watson steered Clarke<\/strong> to a tiny startup company in California that was constructing automated DNA sequencing machines. Applied Biosystems agreed to Clarke\u2019s challenge that they create a sequencing procedure that did not require a comparison between two samples, as was previously needed to establish identity. Clarke donated whole blood for the experiment. In 1988 his blood was used in the first successful sequencing of DNA using PCR, now the global standard. Automated DNA Sequencing Methods Using PCR was published in The Journal of Clinical Chemistry in 1989. Clarke was granted permission to have access to DNA sequencing by the lab for his next series, Tertulia and From the Blood of Poets, Taken Literally. (1989-1995). The lab chose the HLA-DQ alpha region of the genome for Clarke\u2019s identity sequencing. It accesses part of the genome that differentiates between self and non-self. The first portrait of the series was Self Portrait in Ixhuatio (1989). Subsequent Portraits included Ana Pellicer, Janet Hasper, Richard Milazzo, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jeff Koons, and Jacques Lowe.<\/p>\n Janet Hasper (Netherlands, 1958-1997)<\/strong><\/p>\n In 1987 Dutch fashion designer Janet Hasper entered the picture and soon became Clarke\u2019s second wife. Sons Ian Skye Clarke and Friso Sebastiaan Clarke arrived in 1990 and 1994. Janet Hasper died of breast cancer in 1997. Clarke responded with the exhibition Vernal Passage, an exhibition that critic Robert C. Morgan called \u201cThese are some of the most poignant and memorable images of loss I have ever encountered.\u201d Review, 1997 and The End Of The Art World New York, Allworth Press.. The Invisible Body<\/strong><\/p>\n The Museum Wiesbaden invited the family to Wiesbaden in spring and summer of 1998, providing housing and a studio. The studio served as a site for several Drawings, Happenings during which a registered nurse drew blood for potential portraits. These Drawings became the basis for the exhibition The Invisible Body (1999). The museum commissioned two sets of 13 portraits with one set being from Clarke\u2019s native New York, the other from the Rhein\/Main region. The exhibition included new Portraits of Nam June Paik, James D. Watson, Charlemagne Palestine, Claus Bury, Anna George, Miguel Algarin, Eiko Ishioka, William N. Copley, Michael and Ute Berger, among others. Many portraits from this series later traveled to museums and institutions in the U.S. and Europe.<\/p>\n Dust To DNA<\/strong><\/p>\n The September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center destroyed the New York studio and brought about the collaboration with local florist and volunteer Emergency Medical Technician Michael Collarone, known as Mikey Flowers. Clarke used Collarone\u2019s photographs of the destruction downtown to memorialize the event, Collarone\u2019s experience, and 17 survivors in the book Mikey Flowers 9\/11, Ashes to Ashes, Dust To DNA. A selection of photographs exhibited at the International Center of Photography in New York was curated by Carol Squiers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Stuttgart gallerist Michael Sturm<\/strong> began to show the DNA Portraits in 2000 and coordinated numerous commissions, the highlight being the 2002 atrium project for the B-W Bank in Stuttgart that included seven new large scaled works. The works were installed in a space designed by architect Frieder von Berg and included portraits of Nobel Prize winner Dr. N\u00fcsslein-Volhart, composer Helmuth Rilling, dancer Birgit Keil, and Friedrich Schiller. The Schiller piece was created with a lock of Schiller\u2019s hair provided by the National Schiller Museum in Marbach. Exhibitions in The International Center of Photography, New York, the Lehmbruck Museum, Duisberg, the Heckscher Museum of Art, NY, the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, and the St\u00e4del Museum, Frankfurt followed.<\/p>\n Genetic Reveries, 2003 at Janos Gat Gallery, New York explored the tender side of genetics and heredity during the time of the birth of daughter Olivia Clarke (2003).<\/p>\n Clarke created a series of circles within circles images in 2008 called NewCircles. The ongoing NewCircles pieces are meditations on death and passage. The subjects of the portraits are people who were very close who died, most of them from cancer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nBeginnings<\/a><\/h3>
\nEurope<\/a><\/h3>
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nNew York<\/a><\/h3>
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\nA subsequent project, AWE, with writer Igor Alexander led to a worldwide pursuit of Halley\u2019s Comet in 1986. The disappointing trajectory of the comet led to the failure of the project and abandonment of plans for a book, exhibitions, and a film. Despite the birth of their son Gerred Clarke in 1985, the couple divorced.
\nThe success of The Red Couch led to many commercial offers to make advertisements and shoot portraits for corporations and magazines. Clarke soon abandoned this path and began to make paintings and large sculptures featuring chromosomes, called the Chromoportraits. Continuing discussions with Dr. James D. Watson and Dr. Paul Schimmel of M.I.T. convinced Clarke to explore options utilizing DNA in his work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nDNA<\/a><\/h3>
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\nThe reduced family began a transition to living in Europe.<\/p>\nCommissioned Portraits<\/a><\/h3>
\nFrance<\/a><\/h3>