Acting the Part: Photography as Theatre
"Acting the Part: Photography as Theatre" by Debra Antoncic, Spring 2007, p. 98
This exhibition cleverly combines iconic images from the history of photography with contemporary photo-based art and video. Beginning with early examples of staged photography from the 19th century, the exhibition moves rapidly through decades of technical and creative innovation to culminate in the mesmerizing video 89 Seconds at Alcázar (2004), by Eve Sussman. Under a broad theme that connects photography with theatre, the exhibition explores the different roles taken up by photographers: actor, artist and storyteller.
In the opening section, various photographers perform as actors before the camera, appearing in staged photographs or dressed in elaborate costumes. Early photographic experiments with staged tableaux are vividly updated by Yasumasa Morimura in Portrait (Futago) (1988), a recreation of Olympia by Édouard Manet. The lush colours of this large-format photograph draw the viewer into the realm of contemporary art, nearly upstaging the small and precious photographs from the earlier period.
The re-enactment of iconic Old Master paintings is an interest shared by other photographers in the exhibition. In Untitled (1999), by Adi Nes, the artist has recreated Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, and it is here that more fundamental problems with the exhibition emerge. Many if not all of the contemporary artists engage with issues of race, gender, sexuality and identity in their work. In Untitled, 14 young men wearing Israeli army uniforms pose as Christ and the disciples, but it is left to the viewer to recognize the uniforms and the landscape of the Middle East in the background. While small versions of the original paintings have been included to alert the viewer to important art-historical references, the political context is absent.
A clue to the organizing principle of the exhibition may be found in a catalogue essay by Marta Weiss. Writing on staged photography in the Victorian photo album, the author describes the 19th-century practice of arranging allegorical or staged photographs alongside more conventional portraits and landscapes. A similar strategy may be at work here. But to include the politically engaged works of artists such as the Canadians Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge merely as examples of storytelling is disingenuous. While entertaining and visually pleasing, the exhibition lacks a critical focus that extends beyond the visual.
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