Art Info

Mankind (An Oriental, a Caucasian, and a Black weighted to Current population statistics),
Nancy Burson, 1985

Materials: Gelatin silver print

Dimensions: 35.56 x 27.94 cm, 14 x 11 inches

Signed, dated, in black ink, recto

Nancy Burson produced some of the earliest computer-generated portraits, and in collaboration with MIT engineers Richard Carling and David Kramlich, became a pioneer in the now familiar territory of computer-manipulated imagery. In 'Mankind' Burson merged the photographs of 'an Oriental' face, 'a Caucasian' face, and 'a Black' face with each image's emphasis weighted to the current population statistics of the different races. Is the result a vision of the future, and progressive in its blurring of racial boundaries, or is its focus on the facial characteristics of different races and its blurring of identities, unsettling and superficial? Whatever it achieves, the task of picturing mankind is always going to be a troubling political task, which as it searches for a common humanity, does away with the individual.

£3,300