MAIERHOFER, Sara-Lena - Dear Clark

Background information

"Christian Karl, a bit ordinary, hardly impressive. The names he created for himself were nicer, more sonorous: Christopher Crowe, Clark Rockefeller.  He created his own reality, and everyone fell for it. With each new name, he left his previous life behind. As if it had never existed. Almost without a trace. In an attempt to penetrate the many layers of his lie and get to the core of his personality, she decided to approach him through fiction, following Clark's example." (© Thirds Books, 2014)
"Erasing the past, taking on a new identity, becoming someone else; not just anyone, but a Rockefeller. The old, long-buried me was once Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter from Bavaria. But he disappeared long ago on a trip from Germany to the United States. His initials were lost in a string of names; his skin took on a handful of pseudonyms, all with grandiose and luxurious lifestyles. In 2008, after three decades of false identities, the lie collapsed and with it the man. Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, aka Christopher Crowe, Clark Rockefeller, to name a few; for many, a swindler, an impostor, a crook; for others, a gifted storyteller, a man with a polished accent who dared to be what he wanted. Sara-Lena MAIERHOFER discovered Clark in 2008 through a newspaper article. She was intrigued by the man with many skins and decided to approach him. After Clark refused to meet with her, she decided to study him from afar and conduct her own criminal investigation based on the available forensic evidence - newspaper clippings, pictures, even Clark's early childhood drawings and her letters to him. But she had to go further. Sara-Lena MAIERHOFER imagined him in a world of clones and doubles, where the boundaries of truth and lies shatter against the rigid limits of the image." (© Natasha Christia)

About the German photographer, Sara-Lena MAIERHOFER

Photo books by Sara-Lena MAIERHOFER