body & world: identity (yr12)

In 2004 The Hayward Gallery staged an important exhibition of photography. It was entitled 'About Face', and "revealed a wide range of approaches from 'straightforward' photography, photomontage, appropriation of found imagery and multiple exposures to complex computer manipulations that challenged our perceptions of beauty and truth. In an age of digital technology and media domination, miracle drugs, plastic surgery and genetic engineering, the artists asked can we still take the portrait at face value?."

                    

Exhibiting artists in 'About Face' included Aziz+Cucher, Valerie Belin, Nancy Burson, Rineke Dijkstra, Lee Friedlander, Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, Orlan, Martin Parr and Gillian Wearing. 

              

Whoever said , "the camera never lies" was lying! Portraits are continually modified and used to manipulate perceptions of the sitter, the photographer or the viewer. The fun lies in working out the game. 

The Victoria & Albert Museum has a great online explanation of the genre of portraiture, and another really useful page on how image and identity can be expressed through photography. The V&A also staged an excellent exhibition of contemporary photography and video from China in 2005. It was called 'Between Past and Future', and investigated the energetic and experimental art made by Chinese artists and photographers since the remarkable economic, social and cultural transformations of China over the last two decades. 

           

R Davies