By examining the fusion of artistic practices experienced in the contemporary cultural scene, this exhibition brings forward the work of prominent international artists as a crucial effort to re-evaluate the relationship of performance art and photography. In performance art, the duration required to execute an artwork is ‘equal’ to the actual artwork. Photography is introduced in this process, as an attempt to capture the artist’s corporeal existence or its trace in action. The ‘tension’ between these two artistic practices is brought forward through the contrast of a performance’s duration unfolding over a specific period of time and the photographic instance capturing only one frame/moment of action. Therefore, the ephemeral dimension of performance art is quoted by the resulting photograph, into a document of permanence. As a pictorial essay, this exhibition proposes the detached photograph as autonomous artwork and presents it alongside similarly treated artistic output.
The performance artist and the photographer can choose the elements on which they can build convergences and divergences. These formats of ‘in-tension’ can be realized through a photograph taken during a live performance, a still image captured from a video performance, an image of the artist taken in collaboration with a photographer or even a self-photographed image of the artist. The relationship between the performer and the photographer is formulated according to the structural elements of these ‘in-tensions’. As a result, this exhibition is based upon the formats of producing artwork by a ‘hybrid creator’, that rises through the merging of an artist’s body and a photographer’s camera lens.