Kaat Pype has been making extraordinary portraits for many years. For this, she often works with an assistant, who takes the sitter’s place in advance, so that technique, pose and concept are well prepared. Pype has now collected all these stand-in images in a book. Each time the same man in front of the camera, not self-conscious. Each time the same man. Page after page. Each time the same man, functionally present, though never about him. As a result, the book of the stand-in raises questions. When does an image of someone become a portrait? Does the stand-in acquire his own identity through the hundred-plus images? Does he become a character? Does the viewer get to know something more about him? What we know for sure is that Kaat Pype is showing something here that did not want attention, something that would not be shown. Her first book STAND-IN took shape at Katrien Anys’ work table, where the two-part cover took its current form. The handwritten, stand-in cover, surrounding the printed, bound cover. It has been a common thread in Kaat Pype’s artistic projects for years. She reverses roles, subverts perspectives. She decontextualises.
STAND-IN is above all also an ode to love, a tribute to her husband.