Self portraits / Self representation
The photographer is his own model

In a spontaneous, easy and sometimes obsessional way, as with traditional pictures, photographers have always done self portraits.

A self portrait (a portrait of the artist taken by himself) has become a self representation (the process by which the artist becomes his own model). Omnipresent in photography at the close of the 20th century, this practice provides food for thought on the very nature of the photgraphic image. Essential works of this contemporary period have been founded on this principle, where the self portrait, claimed or not by the artist, gives every creation a further dimension that is both disturbing and universal.

Many artists photograph themselves in a methodical way throughout their lives. Autobiographies have become the most direct means of recounting our era; the artist chooses to photograph his life rather than that of others (Goldin). Paradoxically, the art of making self portraits is often the opposite to the autobiography approach. The "dressing up" involved, therefore enables the artist to take the place of someone else (Journiac). Self representation has also illustrated a certain drift with the use of increasingly sophisticated decors. The artist becomes the anonymous figure of his own fantasies (Morimura, Sherman).

If the photographer has the capacity to capture time, the retrospective look he takes of himself, inevitably results in him questioning his own destiny: by evoking his body (Coplans), by creating the scene of his own death (Appelt, Beard, Michals) or quite naturally by creating very little before it becomes a series of particularly moving self portraits (Guilbert, Mapplethorpe). Other photographers portray their life physically and spiritually in front of the lens (Molinier, Nebreda).

The objective of this small exhibition, created using part of the collection of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, is to reveal the self portrait aspect of contemporary photography. Without claiming to be exhaustive on the matter, it nevertheless presents some exceptional works from the collection that illustrate certain recurrent elements.

Self portraits / Self representation
Collection of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie

Bill Brandt, André Kertesz, Irving Penn, Denis Roche, William Eugène Smith, Weegee, Dieter Appelt, Peter Beard, John Coplans, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Hervé Guibert, Michel Journiac, Jurgen Klauke, Robert Mapplethorpe, Duane Michals, Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Pierre Molinier, Yasumasa Morimura, David Nebreda, Philippe Perrin, Pierre et Gilles, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol