Susan
Tetsu Okuhara
American, born 1942
1971
A collage of gelatin-silver photographs in which the artist assembles a tight grid of small prints into a mirrored frontal nude, fragmenting the body to examine how photography constructs identity and perception.
At a distance it reads as a single, symmetrical nude with folded arms and voluminous hair, but close up the hundreds of square tiles, their thin seams and slight tonal shifts, break the figure into a shimmering, pixel‑like mosaic that both unifies and dislocates the body.
Made in 1971, this work sits at the intersection of conceptual photography and photo‑collage, using montage, seriality, and the grid to challenge the authority of the single image and to reveal how photographic reproduction assembles — rather than merely records — human presence.
Medium
Collage of gelatin silver prints
Dimensions
34 3/4 × 24" (87.6 × 60.9 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
David H. McAlpin Fund
Accession
391.1972
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
