Sean Fader
Above: Sean Fader I Want To Put You On, Raini, 2007, Digital C-print. 36 in. x 24 in.
Born in Ridgewood, New Jersey — a conservative suburb of New York — Sean Fader was always active in the performing arts. Attending both Northwestern and The New School University, then pursuing his career by performing on and off Broadway, Fader’s history as an actor informs his fine art practice. He attributes his performative background and his lack of formal art training (until receiving his MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago) for his lack of reverence for the “truth” in photography. Each photo in the 2007 series I Want to Put You On depicts Fader’s likeness, namely his head, expertly merged in Photoshop with the bodies of his various subjects. A zipper down the center of each body is left slightly open at the collarbone exposing Fader’s hairy chest and neck rising out of the “costume.” Fader selects his subjects based on their bearing qualities that he covets. His “trying on” of these bodies then is an exploration of those traits within himself. Fader begins by photographing his subject in their own environment, and then in an interesting role reversal, has each subject photograph and direct him in acting as or “being,” the subject. He says, “I call them inter-subjective portraits – it’s where our two subjectivities collide in the middle that’s neither them nor me but it’s a portrait of me performing their idea of who they think they are,” (13). A mirror of his or her self-concept, Fader