The Performative Self-Portrait

Exhibition: May 13 – November 12, 2023

The Performative Self-Portrait
RISD Museum

May 13 – November 12, 2023

This exhibition explores the work of photographers who turn the camera back upon themselves. From capturing themselves in shadows and reflections to trying on alternative or speculative identities, The Performative Self-Portrait explores the body as material and medium and photography as vehicle to consider ways artists use self-portraiture to enact the self, question history, and articulate identity. Made between 1930 and the present, works in the exhibition range from new acquisitions to older works on view for the first time.

Curated by Conor Moynihan, Assistant Curator, Prints, Drawings & Photographs, and Matthew Kluk, Brown PhD 2025, History of Art and Architecture.

  • RISD
Pinea Silva, 2011
Parts of a Body House, 1966
Americana I Ching Apple Pie, 2007
Devour, 2003 – 2004