Blind Date in Pankow
April 9, 2011 § 1 Comment
The other day I read that Jadranka Kosorcic, a German-Croatian artist working in Berlin, is looking for people to pose for portraits. She distributes flyers and puts advertisements in the paper: “Artist is looking for people m/f willing to pose for a portrait. Time spent: 1-3h. Send photo to kosorcic@hotmail.com.”
Her charcoal drawings are part caricature, part wanted ad, and explore the theme of identification. They look pretty cool, and she seems pretty dedicated (she’s been working on this series since the early ’90s). So I sent her a picture, and she invited me over for a blind date at her studio in Pankow.
We sat in a very spare white room with two chairs, an easel, and a piece of charcoal. Over the course of three hours we spoke about our favorite places to travel, the landscape of Croatia, New York, bad food in Berlin, private collectors, and portraiture.
Kosorcic made only a few sweeping motions on the paper as we spoke. At first, I was all: What’s taking so long? But then I remembered that the whole point is minimalism, and expressing identity with only the most necessary lines.
The artist is obviously accustomed to sketching East German women, I see…