Vanitas was made by scanning numerous dilapidated mirrors and producing prints directly from those digital images. Comprising an immense collection of surfaces that have lost their ability to reflect, the work documents the ruined mirrors, calling attention to their physical conditions, histories and current uses. The sumptuous surface of Baier’s work also plays with our expectations of reflection and reality – our likeness cannot be viewed in these mirrors, yet it is practically impossible not to seek, hunt and reach for anything that may constitute an image, and to become lost in the literal, and figurative, nothingness before us.
