TURNING CORNERS

Bettina von Zwehl talks to art historian and disability activist Amanda Cachia about her abstract silhouettes imbued with a politics of difference

- Bettina von Zwehl

Bettina von Zwehl has put her models into a corner, both literally and metaphorically. In her new series of photographs commissioned by Wallpaper*, the artist has favoured the corner for all the complex associations that it offers – as a place to perform in, to hide, to emerge or be still, or to feel constrained, or conversely, to feel safe. When I inquire about the corner in her work, von Zwehl quotes philosopher Gaston Bachelard, who wrote in The Poetics of Space (1958) that the corner is ‘the chamber of being’. The artist continues, ‘for the fashion story, I felt it was a symbolic place for my group of sitters to perform in, and to resist the constraints of the space… and in the most subtle way, [it is also] a critique of the fashion industry.’