I am told that I almost died at birth, as did my mother, and sometimes I wish I had. At the age of two I refused to eat and did my best to leave this world. I was fed intravenously and monitored to make sure that I ate and stayed alive, first in the hospital, and then at home. It seemed that my destiny was to continue, but to what purpose?
I felt condemned to life, and I consider myself a prisoner in this body.
In 1968, when I began taking self-portraits, I was concerned with the body: more specifically, with my body, and with my body in relation to my friends' bodies. I had no other way to measure the world. Lacking an identity, or any way to judge my separation from others, I began with my physical self. This would later prove inadequate, but it was a beginning.
In the last few years, since the deaths of Felix and Jorge, my attention has returned to the body, to my body and to theirs, as the residue of what was.