Woman With Her Back to the Viewer in Gallery Photos Speaks Out
“I like to think of myself as a modern-day Rückenfigur,” she said in an exclusive interview with Hyperallergic.
At once stoic and melancholy, pensive and forlorn, Woman With Her Back to the Viewer in All Those Gallery Photos is perhaps one of the art world's most elusive figures. She opens up for the first time in an exclusive interview with Hyperallergic, which she agreed to only on the condition that her back face the camera during our Zoom call.
Read our conversation, in which she refers to herself as a “modern-day Rückenfigur” and reveals her grueling morning workout routine, below.
Hyperallergic: What does a typical workday look like for you?
Woman With Her Back to the Viewer in All Those Gallery Photos: I wake up and do 100 deadlifts and 65 lat pulldowns. Then I head into the office, which is wherever anyone needs an average-height woman of ideally ambiguous ethnic background to stand next to an artwork that day.
H: Who would you cite as your influences?
WWHBTTVIATGP: Caspar David Friedrich — I like to think of myself as a modern-day Rückenfigur. Barbara Kruger. Anyone who has ever said “Yes, I'm familiar with their work” with a straight face.
H: How do you manage to always be facing away exactly when the shutter clicks?
WWHBTTVIATGP: I had to develop very good hearing. I am like a beaver, who pauses while chewing on tree trunks to listen for movement.
H: What's the most challenging part about the job?
WWHBTTVIATGP: I don't get commission when an artwork sells, which seems unfair. I mean, I stood next to it for several minutes! That's more effort than most Gagosian sales directors shooting off PDFs from a yacht to their rich friends are putting in.
H: Will the art market ever properly compensate unseen labor?
WWHBTTVIATGP: No. I have to keep up several side hustles to make ends meet. On Saturdays, I make myself blurry and walk in front of artworks. I've never told anyone that.
H: Critics have called the photographs of your back “confrontational,” “post-person,” and “the most searing gesture in contemporary portraiture.” What's your response?
WWHBTTVIATGP: Frankly, I try to put all that behind me.
This Q&A is part of our new interview series, Who's Behind Those Weird Art World Photos? Look out for next week's issue, where we'll bring you a rare behind-the-scenes conversation with Art Handler Whose Gloved Hands Are Holding the Painting in Every Auction House Press Image.
