The Experimental Self

The Photography of Edvard Munch

Author: Patricia G. Berman, Tom Gunning, MaryClaire Pappas and Heidi Bale Amundsen

Hardcover

Discover Edvard Munch's investigative and poetic photographs of himself and his surroundings

Edvard Munch was the first artist of his time to use the camera for "selfies". Munch saw the camera as another way to express himself artistically.

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Summary

Discover Edvard Munch's investigative and poetic photographs of himself and his surroundings

Edvard Munch was the first artist of his time to use the camera for "selfies". Munch saw the camera as another way to express himself artistically.

Description

I have an old camera with which I have taken countless photographs of myself. It often produces astonishing effects, Edvard Munch states in a 1930 interview. Someday when I am old and have nothing better to do than work on an autobiography, all my photographic self-portraits will see the light of day again. The autobiography was never realised, but the self-portraits have found their way to the pages of The Experimental Self. The Photography of Edvard Munch, which demonstrates the fundamentally experimental nature of the artist's photographic practice.

As a photographer, Munch embraced the freedom provided by the amateur position, and the unpredictable aspects of analogue photographic technology. By playfully approaching his own image in picture after picture, Munch extends his explorations of selfhood in other media through photography. The resulting photographs provide unique access to Munch's radical artistic vision, which this book studies through eminent essays by Patricia G. Berman, Tom Gunning and MaryClaire Pappas.

About the Author

Patricia G. Berman is Theodora L. and Stanley H. Feldberg Professor of Art at Wellesley College. Tom Gunning is Professor Emeritus of Art History, Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago. He has written extensively on problems of early and silent film, American avant-garde cinema and Hollywood film. MaryClaire Pappas is a PhD Student at Indiana University specialising in modern European art, with an emphasis on Scandinavian paintings, prints, and drawings. Heidi Bale Amundsen holds a PhD in Art History. She works as an art critic and is the chairwoman of the Norwegian Critics Association.