Verena Winkelmann

The book and project Fold Out, which is Winkelmann's 5th monograph, deals with the naked human body of different ages, genders, and ethnicities. The body forms the basis of our experience of ourselves and the world. Winkelmann has entered into a close dialogue with various bodies and examines the extent to which the body can be represented without shame and without the viewer becoming a voyeur. She has wanted to explore the possibilities in the body as a material and the ornamental potential in its forms. Through fragmentation and close studies, the book is a quest to find out what the undisguised and unadorned body looks like.

The body has always been a political battleground. Through various forms of power and ideologies, our bodies are tamed and shaped. Through photographic representation and self-realization ideals, stereotypes are confirmed and produced. Most of the bodies we see in public are sexualized and perfected, the naked body without a filter has become both foreign and dangerous. Winkelmann makes us feel this shyness, and in that way she puts the spotlight on something as unusual as a body without direction or sales potential.

(Text taken from the publisher's review of the book)