Author(s): Ronnie van Hout; Justin Patton

New Zealand

I've Abandoned Me explores van Hout's career-long reckoning with the self portrait genre. Many of van Hout's works consist of dummies, doppelgangers and body doubles. These include latex casts of his own head, an 'invisible man', extra-terrestrials, men on the moon, and figures buried up to their necks in solid rock. With skepticism, humour and a fresh perspective, van Hout engages with one of the central themes of recent art - 'the construction of identity'. 68 pages, full colour, more than 50 images of works by van Hout and a 10,000 word essay by Justin Paton.