Present on the international contemporary art scene since the early 1980's Clegg & Guttmann
take up a visual rhetoric reminiscent of the bourgeois portraits of the Dutch Golden Age while
at the same time referencing the group images that crystallize the powers of the 20th and 21st
centuries. They use the conventions of 17th century Dutch portraiture to place them in a
contemporary context. Clegg & Guttmann's portraits presented in this volume are rejected
commissions which involve a very particular protocol in the Clegg & Guttmann method. Thus the
subjects have commissioned a portrait from the artists but are free to refuse the result.
However the artists retain the right to show and publish the work which remains their
property even after the commissioner has refused it. This reverse tactic is also symbolic of
the power issues in the particular category of portraiture. MICHAEL CLEGG (*1957 Dublin) and
YAIR MARTIN GUTTMANN (*1957 Jerusalem) have been working together as the artist duo Clegg &
Guttmann since 1980. The focus of their joint work is on installations and photographic
projects. In addition both artists are also active as university teachers: Clegg is a
professor at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design and Guttmann is a professor at the
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
