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Dear Clark, a Portrait of a Con Man
As a time traveler moves between different centuries, a con man like Clark Rockefeller travels between various identities and lives, at home only in permanent transformation. Trying to capture him in his many disguises is a rather hopeless endeavor. After several attempts to trap his persona, I realized I had to beat him with his own weapons. Accordingly, I encircled the phenomenon of the con man on different levels: his appearance, his conventions, criminal profile, and pathologies. Above all, I had to become accustomed to experimenting with deception myself, if I wanted my research to be successful—to the point where reality and speculation merged, and where facts seemed as unknown and unknowable as fiction.
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About the Artist
Sara-Lena Maierhofer (born 1982 in Freudenstadt, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. She graduated in 2011 from the Fachhochschule Bielefeld with a degree in photography and media. Her work, consisting of photographs, videos, and objects, lingers between interpretation, narration, and documentation. Reoccuring subjects in her studies include identity and role play, and explores other people’s lives in general. Her latest work “Dear Clark, a Portrait of a Con Man” investigates the life and lies of Clark Rockefeller, aka Christian Gerhartsreiter, and has been shown at the Museum of Photography in Berlin, the Deichtorhallen Hamburg, and FOAM Amsterdam.
For more about Sara-Lena Maierhofer’s
book go to: www.lindhorst-emme.de/
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