I was just watching the Ed Gein series on Netflix and it occurred to me to mention something of it. Born in 1906, Gein was the original American serial killer. The obsession that precipitated his acts is traced to his encounter with reports of Ilse Koch, known as Die Hexe von Buchenwald by inmates of the camp, as Koch was being tried for war crimes. Koch's story tells of her selecting prisoners for death and fashioning souvenirs from their skin—most infamously, a lampshade. It is suggested that Gein’s schizophrenic mind was incapable of resolving the figure of Ilse Koch with the figure of his apocalyptically repressive mother Augusta, preacher of damnation and female evil. The crux of his dilemma derived from Ilse and Augusta being both identical and diametrically opposed. Perhaps we should not expect to resolve such contradictions—the schizophrenic refusal may be the proper response to figures that break categorical sense. But faced with two observations he couldn't reconcile externally, Gein was driven to resolve them within himself. The catastrophic result of this being Gein’s monstrous deeds which included assembling human suits from the skin of his victims and of bodies he exhumed. These grotesque costumes were ultimately attempts at becoming the impossible figure—neither Koch nor Augusta but the unthinkable synthesis of both—achieved through the domestication of atrocity that he had observed.
My work represented here in documentation consisted of nine photographs of exotic birds framed behind one-way mirror glass. The photographs were taken at the aviary of the Basel Zoo. Accompanying the frames were four moving-head spotlights perched on a lighting stand. The spotlights were sequenced to illuminate each photograph, one at a time. Due to the one-way mirror, in its unilluminated state, the photograph is obstructed by one’s own reflection and that of the surrounding room. Once illuminated, the photograph is clearly revealed, but direct observation is blinded by the spotlight.
Michael Ray-Von, Casual Observation (2025)
Nine photographs in one-way-mirror frames, moving-head lamps, lighting stand, hardware, artist’s software
Michael will open an exhibition alongside Margherita Raso at Autokomanda, Belgrade on April 18. He will have a solo exhibition this summer at Kunstverein Braunschweig.