Pipeline - Issue - 37

في هذا العدد

This issue of Pipeline is about photography. Once a year we like to focus on art that results from the interaction between light and light-sensitive material. Since the 1960s and the weakening of the social and political agendas of modernism, which prioritised the representation of human society through progress, art practices have become available to those minorities previously excluded: women, as reflected by the Untitled Film Series (1977-1980) by Cindy Sherman, a series of self-portraits as various stereotypes of western women; ethnic minorities; the lower classes of society; sexual minorities and so on. Since the 80s, contemporary artists have engaged with the mundane and the ordinary, coinciding with photographic material’s increasing everyday presence. It is therefore interesting to differentiate the versatile functions of photography in contemporary art-making; popularly employed for its documentary qualities within conceptual endeavours, it is also a good companion to figurative painting, especially since its recent transition back from abstraction.