The exhibition “Green, Yellow & Black” shows the results of a workshop with MA Photography students. Artist Lieven Segers curated this exhibition which focused on humour.
“Unless the work is explained, you will never get the joke.“
Review by Emilia Sarpong
Opening of “Green, Yellow & Black”
As we may take note of the new craze, humour seems to be visible in the work of today’s young artists and photographers, which many believe tips off a new artistic habit. For this reason and the ongoing blooming, a preliminary research result was test out with the findings of the Master students of Photography of LUCA School of Arts.
Under the supervision of their Project Coordinator Lisbeth Decan, these Master students of Photography built up an art-photographic exhibition in pursuit of humour in photography and the Master Students of Cultural Studies of KULeuven were privileged to visit the exhibition, which I hereby write a review. In this review, we will find out, if they were successful in adding humour to their work and also reflect on what humour is in photography.
“Until today, the affective component of photography has mainly been associated with photographic representations of suffering and the ethical call. It is then, no coincidence that Roland Barthes related the affective power of photographs to the wound (punctum).”[1] And this is gradually changing, many will agree that laughter increases lifespan and thus a little bit of humour in photography will save the day, but is adding humour to art an easy task?
Eva Donckers and her work “Art is really serious stuff – Is Art really serious stuff?”
On the pursuit of humour in art in a given time frame, one week as we were told, photography, film, installation and audio, were their predominant choice of media used. When entering the exhibition room, one’s attention is drawn to the first work: “Art is really serious stuff – Is Art really serious stuff?”. This work, I believe tries to put it’s viewers to question what humour is for them. The different hairstyles flipped against each other, entails nothing but tells us humour is personal or shared experience: what I find funny, might not be funny for the other person except when there is a shared experience, either have the same cultural background, understands the joke and so on. After engaging with the first art, and entering the room, you see photographic works displayed on the floor, a work that shows street photographic-interaction with strangers by sharing a bar of chocolate and laughter. In this work, one immediately notice the pursuit of humour in photography. The artist really goes into the street to span laughter out of his/her audience. Seeing these images, you are only left to smile and to acknowledge how important it is to interact with people both known and unknown, for you might make their day.
It is rather unfortunate that I cannot talk about every work at the exhibition, but in all, and as we witnessed, they expressed in their work what humour is for them. This I think was very important both for both the students who put up the exhibition and their visitors, who on the other hand were left to decide or wonder what was humour in the exhibition and this brings us back to the first work that one encountered before entering the exhibition room, what is humour for us?
I cannot speak for everyone if they found humour in the exhibition but for myself and as a concluding remark, will say they really did a great job in showing humour in their work within a limited time frame. One might agree or disagree to finding humour in the exhibition, but in their view, that was humour, and unless the work is explained, you will never get the joke
photography performing humour 