This is a book of portraits of people who have re-created themselves through plastic surgery.
Phillip Toledano believes that we are at the vanguard of a period of human-induced evolution. A turning
point in history where we are beginning to define not only our own concept of beauty, but of physicality
itself.
¿ Beauty has always been a currency, and now that we finally have the technological means
to mint our own, what choices do we make?
¿ Is beauty informed by contemporary culture? By history? Or is it defined by the surgeon¿s hand?
¿ When we re-make ourselves, are we revealing our true character, or are we stripping away
our very identity?
¿But the impact of these faces and the bodies is jarring, even alienating. The sitters¿ motivations for these
enormous changes are undoubtedly personal and deeply felt, but the enormity of that transgressive action
challenges us as the viewer to sort out our own ideas about beauty and gender.¿
¿W.M. Hunt
Phillip Toledano lives and works in New York. Phillip¿s work is socio-political, and varies in medium, from
photography, to installation. Toledano has three monographs published on his artistic practice, with the
most recent, Days With My Father, being received to critical acclaim.
His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Harpers, Esquire,
GQ, Wallpaper, The London Times, The Independent, Le Monde, and Interview magazine, amongst others.
W.M. Hunt is a New York-based collector, curator, consultant and overall champion of photography. The
Unseen Eye: Photographs from the W.M. Hunt Collection was published by Aperture in the US, and
Thames & Hudson in the UK, in October 2011.