Computer animated morph made out of the five most ugly faces in the Portray Collection of the Swedish National Gallery. This is not the first time he depicts the relativity of beauty and asks whether beauty can grow out of a combination of ugliness. From the collections he has chosen the ugliest faces, and he lets them merge into each other in a film that works as a continuous portrait, a picture compounded from five centuries.
Funnily enough, the ugly faces that Gmelin has chosen all seem to have extremely large noses and owl-like eyes, which perhaps makes it easier for the portraits of Lucas Cranach, Per Krafft, Albert Engstrom and Olaf Rudeto merge into one individual, who breathes; eyes fasten on you and lips pursed, while at the same time shoulders are shrugged, the chin protrudes and the décolletage goes up and down.
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