Me, My Self and the Photographic Eye

Photographers' Self Portraits

Many photographers and artists have turned the lens on themselves, in fact, it seems to be a rite of passage which is obligatory in order to justify taking images of anyone else.

Cindy Sherman (b 1954) has spent a professional lifetime in front of her own lens, but in an un-credited article it has been suggested that "Although the majority of her photographs are pictures of her... these photographs are most definitely not self portraits". The author suggests that, rather than give us autobiographical images, Sherman is adopting roles - housewife, filmstar, prostitute - and that she is only "playing with elements of self-portraiture".

This is interesting, as the immediate assumption when seeing a photographer in front of the lens is that the image being created is intended to be of the photographer, and as such we are to accept that the author wants us to perceive him or her in that way. Self portraits are supposed to tell us about the person, to give us clues about the person's personality. Sherman's work, arguably, does not do that on an immediate level. (More profoundly, her choice of masks may tell us quite a lot about how she wishes to be perceived..)

Sherman's later work made use of prosthetics as well as, and eventually in lieu of, her own presence in the photographs. For example, her History Portraits (1990) series shows an increasing use of prosthetic 'prop':

click to enlarge

... and her 1992 Sex Pictures series relies entirely on mannequins and prosthetics with no hint of the actual Cindy at all:

Sherman has, since the Sex Pictures, returned to using herself as a model, but the images (of herself in the guise of Californian women) are not what I can come to terms with as being self portraits but reverting to her role-play strategy in order to parody a stereotype.

Whilst it can be argued that her oeuvre is based on the self portrait, Sherman goes to great lengths to conceal her own identity in all her work so, for me, her images can be called portraits, pastiche, parody... but not images of her Self.

Robert Mapplethorpe was a master of the self portrait, but he was never less than honest, even when in role. Whereas Sherman substitutes prosthetics for her own nakedness, Mapplethorpe had no such qualms nor did he show any indication that he would tolerate such sensitivities in his audience. His work is overtly sexualised; there is little in his entire oeuvre which cannot be given sexual connotation (should one feel inclined) from the simple calle lily to the little girl Rosie who caused such a stir in the 1990 exhibition 'The Perfect Moment', so it is no surprise that Mapplethorpe's photographs of himself display a high level of autoeroticism.

Christian Boltanski (b1944) has a very personal take on recording and portraying the Self in his work. His complete disregard for the truth and his willingness to distort history is at the very core of his oeuvre: "a large part of [his] activity has to do with the idea of biography, but biography that is totally false, with all kinds of false evidence"[1] It is impossible on first encounter to distinguish the 'real' autobiographical content of Boltanski's work from the fictitious, making us distrust it entirely once we have rumbled the game he plays. But it doesn't really matter (Boltanski himself said "facts don't matter") because the message does not rely on the author's adherence to the truth (to put it somewhat harshly).

Take, for example, Boltanski's 1969 book Recherche et presentation de tout ce qui reste de mon enfance, 1944-1950. In it we find photographs of items from the author's past - clothing, furniture, snippets of hair - which collectively offer us a portrait of Boltanski as a child as he attempts to halt the transience of his life by preserving the past. Touching, poignant in the extreme. And fake. The items were borrowed from his nephew [2]

(I have had it pointed out to me that Boltanski would disapprove of my using a 'real' photograph of the man himself - much better to include something a little more enigmatic, like a biscuit tin...)

Risa Harowitz is an artist based in Toronto. For her MA in Fine Arts in 2000, she displayed 1585 self portraits, taken over a period of some seven or eight years, in a tightly catalogued and structured archival display and interactive database. Entitled 'Girl Before a Mirror', the work was done largely as a vehicle to explore and control Horowitz' life as a perpetual worrier: "Girl Before a Mirror" was created out of a practice of control and worry in relation to my position as a woman who grapples with a disconcerting sense of being constantly on view. I have come to understand my self-portraiture as a visual means of self-conscious probing into my experiences as a person who worries." Because of the sheer enormity of the collection, the images - a mixture of posed and relaxed shots - cannot possibly be given individual attention. However, it is the sheer size, the number and the extended nature of the 'self-surveillance' project which gives it its power.

It can be seen from the examples I have shown that not everyone wishes to portray his or herself openly or without opportunity for broad interpretation, but that for others, that is precisely the point.

Click here to see some more examples of self portraits.

URLs

Cindy Sherman.com

Image and Narrative Online magazine of the Visual Narrative

Risa Horowitz Girl Before a Mirror

References

[1] Fleischer, 1998. Cited in Impossible self-representation. Ruchel-Stockmans, K. 2006. www.imageandnarrative.be

[2] Gumpert, L. 1994 Christian Boltanski Flammarion. Cited in Impossible self-representation. Ruchel-Stockmans, K. 2006

Danto, AC Playing With the Edge: the photographic achievement of Robert Mapplethorpe pub University of California Press 1996