Coralville Studio

In 1969, five years after moving from his native Germany to New York City, Hans Breder accepted a teaching post at the University of Iowa, founding their Intermedia Arts program in which a variety of media were brought together. In a series that merged sculpture, performance, and photography, Breder posed his models holding polished steel mirrors that masked parts of their bodies and doubled others. The results echoed the works of earlier photographers who used photography to transform the body, such as Hans Bellmer, Bill Brandt, and André Kertész—resonances that Breder would certainly have recognized.