Hotel Principal, Oaxaca, from the series "Body/Sculptures", 1973

German born artist Hans Breder emigrated to New York in 1964 where he had his first American show — a sold-out exhibition of sculptures at the Richard Feigen Gallery. Shortly afterwards he accepted a teaching job at the University of Iowa where he founded the Intermedia and Video Art Program, one of the most influential programs of the time.

It was there that Breder met the 20 year old student Ana Mendieta beginning a 10 year partnership that was creative, romantic, and reciprocal with Breder holding the camera for many of Mendieta’s still and video images and Mendieta bringing many of her own ideas to the photographs Breder made of her.

The photograph “Hotel Principal, Oaxaca. 1973” was made on one of the couple’s annual trips to Mexico where Breder helped to shoot some of Mendieta’s early celebrated works along with making his own work using a mirrored surface to create a connection between space, body, and the fragmentation of form. Collectively the series would be known as “Body/Sculptures” bridging the gap between photography, performance, and body art.

The print being offered here was made especially for the Danziger Gallery’s 2015 show of Breder’s photographs. (Prints from this show were acquired by The Getty, The Whitney, and the Museum of Fine Art, Houston.) Breder had told James Danziger that he wanted to make a print on linen and Danziger introduced Breder to Martin Axon, a celebrated platinum printer who had made all of Robert Mapplethorpe’s platinum on linen prints. Using the same technique Axon produced an edition of three prints of the image here – the only image to be printed in this way.