Performing for the Camera

Photography has been used to capture performances since its invention – from the stars of the Victorian stage to the art happenings of the 1960s, right up to today’s trend for selfies. 

This exhibition explores the relationship between the two forms, looking at how performance artists use photography and how photography is in itself a performance.

Watch curator Simon Baker talk about key works in the exhibition:

Performing for the Camera includes over 500 images, including vintage prints, large scale works, marketing posters and Instagrammed photos. It shows how photographs have captured performances by important artists including Yves Klein and Yayoi Kusama, and ground-breaking collaborations between photographers, performers and dancers. It looks at how artists including Francesca Woodman, Erwin Wurm and others have used photography as a stage on which to perform, and how figures from Cindy Sherman and Hannah Wilke to Marcel Duchamp and Samuel Fosso have used photography to explore identity.

Watch three interviews exploring themes within the exhibition.