
Photography Performing Humor
Leuven University Press
Will be published approx. on 6. March 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
216 pages
978-94-6270-165-6 (ISBN)
Description
New perspectives on humor within photography
Despite the ubiquitous presence of photographic humor in art and popular media, the phenomenon has as yet received very little scholarly attention. Focusing on staged humor rather than on comic effects of snapshot photography, this volume brings together leading scholars in the field addressing humor performed in front of the camera, often specifically created for the camera, and the performative joke-work done by the medium itself. A first section explores how photography, due to its "shattering" qualities, turns into a privileged medium for eliciting humorous effects and how humor can be discerned within the photographic event. A second section discusses the toolbox of photographic trickery (photomontage, double exposure and cinematic movement) that allows photography to mock itself. The book closes with a section on photographic wit in conceptual art, both in canonized and more locally distinct practices.
With artists' pages from Paulien Oltheten, Lieven Segers and David Helbich
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).
Contributors: Kevin Atherton (National College of Art and Design, Dublin), Anna Corrigan and Susana S. Martins (Universidade NOVA de Lisboa), Hilde D'haeyere (KASK School of Arts of University College Ghent), Heather Diack (University of Miami), Louis Kaplan (University of Toronto), Ann Kristin Krahn (Braunschweig University of the Arts), Sandra Krizic Roban (Institute of Art History, Zagreb), Esther Leslie (Birkbeck University of London), Johan Pas (Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp), Katarzyna Ruchel-Stockmans (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
Despite the ubiquitous presence of photographic humor in art and popular media, the phenomenon has as yet received very little scholarly attention. Focusing on staged humor rather than on comic effects of snapshot photography, this volume brings together leading scholars in the field addressing humor performed in front of the camera, often specifically created for the camera, and the performative joke-work done by the medium itself. A first section explores how photography, due to its "shattering" qualities, turns into a privileged medium for eliciting humorous effects and how humor can be discerned within the photographic event. A second section discusses the toolbox of photographic trickery (photomontage, double exposure and cinematic movement) that allows photography to mock itself. The book closes with a section on photographic wit in conceptual art, both in canonized and more locally distinct practices.
With artists' pages from Paulien Oltheten, Lieven Segers and David Helbich
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).
Contributors: Kevin Atherton (National College of Art and Design, Dublin), Anna Corrigan and Susana S. Martins (Universidade NOVA de Lisboa), Hilde D'haeyere (KASK School of Arts of University College Ghent), Heather Diack (University of Miami), Louis Kaplan (University of Toronto), Ann Kristin Krahn (Braunschweig University of the Arts), Sandra Krizic Roban (Institute of Art History, Zagreb), Esther Leslie (Birkbeck University of London), Johan Pas (Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp), Katarzyna Ruchel-Stockmans (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
Reviews / Votes
En examinant l'humour en photographie, ce volume propose un parcours dans l'histoire dumedium et offre l'occasion aux lecteurs de multiples potentialites de decouvrir, ou redecouvrir,
des corpus souvent negliges. L'interet de cette reflexion collective reside finalement plus dans la
revalorisation de ces objets photographiques, culturels et artistiques consideres comme anecdotiques que dans une veritable conceptualisation de ce que serait un humour performatif.
Valerie Morisson, Focales n degrees 4 : Photographies mises en espaces, mis a jour le 19/05/2020, URL : https://focales.univ-st-etienne.fr/index.php?id=2792 The book is well designed, with black-and-white illustrations in every chapter. The essays are bookended by colourful (and humorous) 'artist's pages' by Paulien Oltheten, Lieven Segers and David Helbich, demonstrating the editors' stated commitment to giving the book 'both a theoretical and practice-based component'(p.22). Stills from Oltheten's La Defense, The Venturing Gaze, which open the book (Fig.9), exemplify the implicit self-reflexivity of much photographic practice. Oltheten includes subtitles of humorous comments made by the people photographed, making subjects of the camera and the photographer themselves. Bleyen's and Decan's book will be useful to scholars and those with an interest in photography and humour theory, as well as individuals interested more generally in the affective turn in art criticism.
Seth Graham, The Burlington Magazine | 162 | March 2020
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Leuven
Belgium
Target group
College/higher education
Interest Age: From 18 years
Illustrations
100 illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 230 mm
Width: 170 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
645 gr
ISBN-13
978-94-6270-165-6 (9789462701656)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Liesbeth Decan is a lecturer and researcher at LUCA School of Arts-Campus Sint-Lukas Brussels and the Lieven Gevaert Research Centre for Photography, Art and Visual Culture. Mieke Bleyen is Researcher at the Lieven Gevaert Research Centre for Photography and the Institute of Cultural Studies at KU Leuven.
Content
Artist's pages by Paulien Oltheten
Acknowledgements
Introduction Mieke Bleyen & Liesbeth Decan
Part IFinding Humor in the Photographic Event
Photography and Laughter's Shattered Articulation Esther Leslie Falling as Art: On Orchestrated Accidents in Photographic Practice in Poland Katarzyna Ruchel-Stockmans Adding a Giggle: Lee Friedlander's Practice of the "Shadow Self-Portrait" Ann Kristin Krahn Performing the Performance Documentation Kevin Artheron
Part IIMaking Fun of Photography through Tricks and Montage
Ghosts Just for Laughs: Spirit Photography and Debunking Humor Louis Kaplan Comedy Performs Photography: Imaginations of Photography in Silent Film Comedies Hilde D'haeyere Feminism, Laughter, and Photomontage: Comedic Effect and Grete Stern's Suenos Anna Corrigan & Susana S. Martins
Part IIIPhotographic Wit in Conceptual Art
Keeping a Straight Face: Photography and the Performance of Conceptual Art Heather Diack "No Photographs Allowed": Conceptual Wit in Some Belgian Photo-based Artists' Books Johan Pas Laughter Protocol: Elements of Humor in Proto- and Conceptual Photography in Croatia Sandra Krizic Roban
About the Authors Artist's pages by Lieven Segers Artist's pages by David Helbich Colophon
Acknowledgements
Introduction Mieke Bleyen & Liesbeth Decan
Part IFinding Humor in the Photographic Event
Photography and Laughter's Shattered Articulation Esther Leslie Falling as Art: On Orchestrated Accidents in Photographic Practice in Poland Katarzyna Ruchel-Stockmans Adding a Giggle: Lee Friedlander's Practice of the "Shadow Self-Portrait" Ann Kristin Krahn Performing the Performance Documentation Kevin Artheron
Part IIMaking Fun of Photography through Tricks and Montage
Ghosts Just for Laughs: Spirit Photography and Debunking Humor Louis Kaplan Comedy Performs Photography: Imaginations of Photography in Silent Film Comedies Hilde D'haeyere Feminism, Laughter, and Photomontage: Comedic Effect and Grete Stern's Suenos Anna Corrigan & Susana S. Martins
Part IIIPhotographic Wit in Conceptual Art
Keeping a Straight Face: Photography and the Performance of Conceptual Art Heather Diack "No Photographs Allowed": Conceptual Wit in Some Belgian Photo-based Artists' Books Johan Pas Laughter Protocol: Elements of Humor in Proto- and Conceptual Photography in Croatia Sandra Krizic Roban
About the Authors Artist's pages by Lieven Segers Artist's pages by David Helbich Colophon