Above: Ace Lehner, Pixy Liao and Claartje van Dijk in conversation on the panel the Right to Represent at the International Center of Photography in NYC.
How do subjects present themselves to the camera? What are the power dynamics between the photographer, subject, and audience? Who historically has been deemed worthy of photographic commemoration and who is missing?
Join us for a lecture and conversation—moderated by ICP assistant curator Claartje van Dijk with scholar and artist Ace Lehner and photographer Pixy Liao—on challenging notions of power and visibility in portrait photography. The evening will begin with Lehner presenting their own work at the intersection of trans and non-binary photographic representation before a discussion on methods of interrogating power dynamics of lens-based portraiture with Liao and van Dijk.
In conjunction with the launch of Self-Representation in an Expanded Field: From Self-Portraiture to Selfie, Contemporary Art in the Social Media Age editor and contributing author Ace Lehner, hosted a conversation with contributing authors, Mahita Iqani, Tina Sauerlaender, Marc Tasman, and Natalie Zelt. Watch the video above.
About the open access book:
Defined as a self-image made with a hand-held mobile device and shared via social media platforms, the selfie has facilitated self-imaging becoming a ubiquitous part of globally networked contemporary life. Beyond this selfies have facilitated a diversity of image making practices and enabled otherwise representationally marginalized constituencies to insert self-representations into visual culture. In the Western European and North American art-historical context, self-portraiture has been somewhat rigidly albeit obliquely defined, and selfies have facilitated a shift regarding who literally holds the power to self-image. Like self-portraits, not all selfies are inherently aesthetically or conceptually rigorous or avant-guard. But, –as this project aims to do address via a variety of interdisciplinary approaches– selfies have irreversibly impacted visual culture, contemporary art, and portraiture in particular. Selfies propose new modes of self-imaging, forward emerging aesthetics and challenge established methods, they prove that as scholars and image-makers it is necessary to adapt and innovate in order to contend with the most current form of self-representation to date.