At first glance, Rafael Goldchain’s
photographs appear to be traditional
family portraits from the early 20th
century. However after closer inspection,
we discover that our expectations
have been surreptitiously subverted.
The products of considerable research
and conceptual rigour, Goldchain’s
photographs are self-portraits: detailed
reenactments of his familial and cultural
history. They begin to take form
as the artist poses for the camera in
full costume and makeup. Using digital
technology, he seamlessly manipulates
DNA and history to present us with a
gallery of rogues, beauties, geeks and
philosophers. Looking at his avatars
and digital revenants, we barely recognize
the slightest trace of the self he
has chosen to portray.

Connecting fragments of information
gathered about the lives of his
Eastern European Jewish grandparents
and their families, while acknowledging
the impossibility of reconciliation,
I Am My Family reflects a way of both
mourning and remembering. In a further
act of transformation, as if to fill
a great void of information, Goldchain
has created additional members of a
chosen family who are completely fabricated.
Prompted by the artifice used
in his invocation of bloodlines, we are
left to ponder our collective history of
fragments.

Curated by P. Elaine Sharpe