Magazine and advertising photographers Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger have a curious side project: They build meticulous scale models recreating iconic photographs. “It started out as a joke,” Cortis says. “In our free time, when there’s no money coming in, we decided to try to recreate the most expensive pictures in the world."
The two are based in Adliswil, Switzerland, and started the project in 2012. The first image they selected was Andreas Gursky’s Rhein II---a landscape Gursky actually rendered free of humans in post-production, and, at just over $4 million, the second most expensive photograph ever sold. They began collecting some of the images seared most deeply into public consciousness---the Hindenburg crash, the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center, and the Titanic, to name a few. The pair painstakingly recreate each scene in miniature using paper, cotton balls, plastic---and plenty of time. Some take a few days, others a few weeks.
Cortis and Sonderegger call the series *Iconen *because the images are instantly recognizable to photographers and casual viewers alike. Most of them possess a solemn reverence, though some have an undeniable sense of whimsy or awe, like the Loch Ness monster or Buzz Aldrin’s footstep in moon dust. Their final images always pull back from the scene to provide a glimpse of the studio and the materials used: a roll of tape here, a glue gun there. They want viewers to know they’re having fun.
To build the Tiananmen Square scene, they bought seven model tanks and spent a week assembling them. That quickly wore thin. “To build one tank is fun, the second is OK, but then the third one is not that much fun,” he says. They called it quits after four, and opted to duplicate the last three in post-production.
The series is ongoing. Their most recent image is a recreation of the assassination of JFK, even though they say "building people is actually really difficult for us." However, the iconic photo isn't in sharp focus. The president's black Lincoln Continental convertible, Jackie’s pink Chanel suit, and the Secret Service agents are all captured in a blur. This made the usually intricate details unnecessary and was a slightly easier set up.
Cortis and Sondregger don't have a specific division of labor here, but they both have young children—four kids younger than four between the two of them---so it's catch-as-catch can. And there is an undeniable spirit of play at work, perhaps inspired by the kids. “Maybe that’s where this interest in building tiny things comes from,” Cortis says.
