FOAM MAGAZINE #17 / PORTRAIT?
Editorial
Marloes Krijnen, director Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam
The portrait occupies an eminent position in the history of photography. Few genres in art display such a rich diversity as the photographic portrait. The human face has fascinated photographers since the beginnings of photography, and that fascination has endured up to today. Even so, reaching a consensus on how to define a portrait is difficult, let alone determining what makes a good portrait. Is it essential, for example, for a photographer to concentrate on the face? Is the human presence even necessary in order to create a portrait of someone? And what about the often complicated relationship between photographer and subject? What does a portrait say about the maker of the image and what does it say about the subject? What is the future of the photographic portrait?
In this issue of Foam Magazine, the international photography magazine published by Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam and communications agency Vandejong, attention is focused on recent work that offers unique interpretations of the idea of the photographic portrait. Under the title Portrait? we present six portfolios of photographic work that together can be regarded as a study of possibilities of giving a new direction to the classic portrait. It is not a confirmation or continuation of established forms of portrait photography, but an implicit questioning of the genre in which the furthest ends of the spectrum are consciously sought. No well-trodden paths, but an open, critical and, we hope, inspiring approach to the photographic portrait.
Samuel Fosso transforms himself in his latest series of staged self-portraits into several of the most important icons of recent African history. Walter Schels and Beate Lakotta continue the age-old tradition of the post mortem in an intriguing way in their series Life Before Death in which they show portraits of people just before and after their deaths. A shoebox full of old family photos was the trigger for Franziska von Stenglins series of diptychs in which she complements and confronts the old photos with her own work. The Swedish artists De Wilde, Bolander and Stark likewise attempt to sketch a retrospective image of someone who is no longer among us. A painstaking and thorough inventory of all the objects a woman left behind on her death becomes a staggering archive that functions as a monument and an indirect portrait. The American conceptual artist and photographer Bill Sullivan photographs in a strictly methodical manner groups of people standing in an elevator. As the lift doors close, the frame changes and with it the image of those present. And finally there is a portfolio of Koos Breukel, compiled of portraits of his fellow photographers made over several years. The complex and intriguing interplay between object and subject is brought into sharp focus.
This issue of Foam Magazine contains, as always, an interview with a prominent figure from the world of photography. Mariko Takeuchi is a curator from Japan who was responsible for the Statement during ParisPhoto last November in which attention was focussed on the youngest generation of Japanese photographers. And we are very proud of this issue's contributors to On My Mind, our regular feature in which people from the world of art and culture talk about a photo which has captured their interest recently. And also in this issue information on Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdams exhibition programme and a short book section.