In Our Image: Photography as Performance
April 17, 2025
- July 13, 2025
Located in the Lawson Print Gallery
In Our Image: Photography as Performance explores the fluidity of identity through photography and performance, showcasing how artists construct, deconstruct, and critique the self. Featuring Cecil Beaton, Martine Gutierrez, Jane Hammond, Joe Harjo, Clarence John Laughlin, Yasumasa Morimura, Steven Pippin, Ernesto Pujol, Cindy Sherman, Megan Solis, and Debra Sugarman, this exhibition presents photography as both a document and stage for performative self-expression. From fashion editorial self-portraits and Indigenous perspectives to abstraction and cultural critique, these artists subvert conventions and offer counter-narratives to dominant representations.
In Our Image positions performance as a tool for reclaiming narratives and reimagining new possibilities within broader cultural and historical contexts. Whether through self-portraiture, bodily gesture, or experimental process, these artists reveal identity as a multifaceted and evolving construct deeply connected to place, memory, and power. Drawn primarily from the McNay’s permanent collection, this exhibition reflects the Museum’s ongoing commitment to center diverse voices and complex expressions of selfhood.
In Our Image: Photography as Performance is organized for the McNay Art Museum by Liz Paris, Curator of Collections/Collections Manager; and Leslie Wooden, Douglass Foundation Fellow in Curatorial Studies.
Support is provided by the Elizabeth Huth Coates Charitable Foundation of 1992, Kronkosky Charitable Foundation, and Louis A. and Francis B. Wagner Endowment.
Image credits:
Yasumasa Morimura, Dedicated to La Duquesa de Alba/Black Alba, 2004. Chromogenic print, mounted on canvas. Museum purchase with funds from the McNay Contemporary Collectors Forum, 2018.33. © Yasumasa Morimura
Cindy Sherman, Untitled (MP #107), 1982. Cibachrome print. Collection of The Tobin Theatre Arts Fund. © Cindy Sherman, courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York
Ernesto Pujol, Entrance from Walk #1, 2004-06. Digital print. Gift of the artist in memory of his paternal grandmother, Amparo Pino Dueñas, 2012.4.1. © Ernesto Pujol
Steven Pippin, The Continued Saga of an Amateur Photographer #4, 1993. Positive paper contact print made from the original paper negative taken and processed using the toilet of a London to Brighton train. Gift of John M. Parker Jr., 2017.175.4. © Steven Pippin
Steven Pippin, Omnigraph, 1994. Solar-powered 360-degree camera. Gift of John M. Parker Jr., 2017.176. © Steven Pippin
Ernesto Pujol, Shrouded Novice, 1999. Digital print. Gift of the artist, 2020.12. © Ernesto Pujol
Cecil Beaton, The Baroness for My Royal Past, 1939. Gelatin silver print with hand-coloring. Gift of Robert L. B. Tobin, TL1990.13.51.74. © Estate of Cecil Beaton
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