David Teplica
Looking at these photos made me realize how neatly the phenomenon of twins suits the postmodern ethos, which calls into question, even denies, the authenticity of individual identity as well as of imagery. At least since Cindy Sherman began working, in the mid-70s, photographers have been filling galleries with wall-size installations of self-portraits in which no version of the self is privileged over any other. And the way Teplica often photographs his twins–intertwined, each facing some part of the other–they look a bit like cutout paper dolls.
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The aesthetic danger in Teplica’s project is that identical twins almost always look cute–and cuteness comes perilously close to kitsch, offering little more than a momentary, meaningless surge of pleasure. But by flirting with cuteness yet never going for the obvious little kick offered by identically dressed kids in double-wide strollers, Teplica creates work full of self-questioning, disturbing echoes. Teplica’s twins don’t merely ask for the viewer’s approbation: they peer into each other’s eyes or grope each other’s bodies, as if seeking themselves in the other–and because of their identical looks, they seem to find it. The range of human interaction is here too: these twins smile together, register surprise together. In Kiss/Bite, they even seem to be furious together, biting at each other’s faces.
Of course twins have long been used in studies that try to distinguish the impact of genetics and environment on the self. Teplica comes down largely on the side of genetics: “If you put twins in different environments, it appears that they end up being more alike than if they’d been raised together. It’s a little scary when you find two identical 89-year-old women with the same gray eyebrow hair in the same place, or two women who developed basal-cell cancer in the same spot within a year of each other. There are people who don’t like my research–it takes away their belief that they’re in control in their lives.” Yet part of what’s so powerful about the photographs is the way that, by pairing twins as if they were mirror images, Teplica foregrounds their differences. Identity places one finger from each twin side by side, displaying the similar fingerprint patterns one would expect–but close inspection reveals numerous differences. An untitled 1996 work pairs six sets of body parts–eyes, nipples, penises–in 12 prints, and again the tiny differences in hair distribution and skin folds are what capture attention.
