GUP #67 - PERFORMANCE
Photography and performance are intricately linked, and in the case of constructed portraiture even go hand in hand. The process of taking a photograph and the actions of the subject are all part of that performative process. As UK art theorist Margaret Iversen suggests, such photography can also be a future-oriented, narrated, subjective account of reality, rather than simply a slice of past reality.
In this issue of GUP – which also marks our 15th anniversary – we would like to pay tribute to performative photography, perhaps less a representation of an object than the effect of an event. Such images are, in the words of Iversen, best understood as “a residue of an experience”: the photograph records the action, and the artist is not completely in control of the outcome in advance. This experience is, metaphorically, exactly what has kept us going ever since we launched the magazine in 2005, and so we, the editors, very much feel acquainted with the artists included in this issue:
April Dawn Alison | Samuel Fosso | Isabelle Wenzel | Tania Franco Klein | Alex Blanco | Marisol Mendez | Paul Simon | Joana Choumali | Lewis Bush | Patrick Willocq | Diana Markosian
All of them have sought to redefine the image through photography, spurning the idea of recording a pre-existing object or situation in favour of using the camera as an instrument of experimentation and exploration.
– The Editorial Team
Cover Image: Isabelle Wenzel
Contributing Photographers:
Alex Blanco | Diana Markosian | Isabelle Wenzel | Joana Choumali | Lewis Bush | Marisol Mendez | Patrick Willocq | Paul Simon | Samuel Fosso | Tania Franco Klein | Tom Butler
Contributing Authors:
Erik Vroons (chief editor) | Azu Nwagbogu | Daniel Boetker-Smith | Linda Zhengová | Patrycja Rozwora (intern)