photo-work

photo-work. A term used since the 1970s to describe various types of works of art based on photographic images that have been manipulated by the artist in some way. It is a difficult term to define with any precision, as artists have routinely made use of photographic imagery since the days of Pop art. However, it generally carries with it the suggestion that a photograph is physically the essential component of the work, rather than merely a part of a mixed media work or the starting-point for a work in some other medium. Many Conceptual artists in particular work with photographs; examples are Victor Burgin, Jan Dibbets, and Barbara Kruger. Some Conceptual artists arrange photographs into new images or place them in a series to record an event or process, but the manipulation may involve only the addition of a text or even less. The extreme example is the work of the American Sherrie Levine (1947– ), who in the early 1980s photographed reproductions of paintings and reproductions of photographs and presented them as her own works of art. This is somewhat in the spirit of Duchamp's ready-mades, although such procedures—considered to exemplify one aspect of Postmodernism—are now dignified with the term ‘appropriation', meaning ‘the direct duplication, copying or incorporation of an image … by another artist who re-presents it in a different context, thus completely altering its meaning and questioning notions of originality and authenticity’ (The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art and Artists, revised edn., 1994). Other artists put in rather more effort. Gilbert & George, for example, create spectacular wall-sized panels in which black-and-white photographs arranged into regular grids are overlaid with garish tints; the artists themselves call these images ‘photo-pieces', rather than ‘photo-works'. They first exhibited such pieces in 1971; earlier they had made ‘postcard sculptures'. David Hockney, also, has created elaborate images using photographs—in his case ‘photocollages’ made up of as many as six hundred overlapping prints. At the other extreme are the pictures of the American Cindy Sherman (1954– ), in which the ‘manipulation’ occurs before the photograph is taken, rather than after it, and the photographic print itself is presented perfectly ‘straight'. Sherman photographs herself acting out roles from imaginary movies, sometimes dressed in elaborate costume, as a way of examining female stereotyping. It is questionable to what extent such images should be called ‘photo-works’ rather than simply ‘photographs', but they routinely feature in books on art as well as on photography. Some critics prefer to use such terms as ‘fabricated photography', ‘set-up photography', or ‘staged photography’ to describe them.