It is a body of work about the body in art at this moment time.
Lois Keidan - Director of Live Art Development Agency, April 2002
– Exposures is Manuel Vason’s first collection of collaborative photographs with 19 of the most acclaimed and controversial practitioners in Britain in the early 2000s: artists who were disrupting the norm, breaking the rules and provoking debate by exposing the body in all its diversities, difficulties and desires.
The Exposures book was an unprecedented approach to the documentation and dissemination of work by performance practitioners. Alongside essays by Lois Keidan and Ron Athey, Exposures brought together images made with some of the most celebrated performance artists working in the UK.
Artists featured in Exposures were Aaron Williamson, Doran George, Ernst Fischer, Franko B, Gilles Jobin, Giovanna Maria Casetta, Helena Goldwater, Joshua Sofaer, Kira O’Reilly, DogonEff, La Ribot, Marisa Carnesky, Mat Fraser, Moti Roti, Oreet Ashery, Robert Pacitti, Ronald Fraser Munroe, Stacy Makishi and Susan Carol Lewis.
These artists represent not only some of the most influential Live Artists working in Britain in late '90 but also some of the most controversial. These artists engage with challenging questions around identity, difference and notions of the forbidden.
All the images exist as original 10×8 inches polaroids. Each collaboration was photographed using a maximum of ten sheets of film, during one day of shooting. The use of polaroid film enabled a series of discussions that structured each short collaborative process. The instant results allowed a practical framework that has since developed into the more extensively dialogue-based modes of collaboration practiced.
Published by Black Dog Publishing Ltd. in 2002 Developed in collaboration with the Live Art Development Agency. Financially assisted by the Arts Council of England
Paperback, 96 pages, 86 colour reproductions, 22×28 cm, ISBN: 1-901033-87-2, UK.
‘These photographs are neither a record of an event nor a portrait of an artist but something in between, or rather beyond: something more intimate, more authentic and ultimately more meaningful. They signify the work as much as document it.’
Dazed and Confused Magazine, issue 75, March 2001
‘The whole initial project has kick started a large-scale national interest in the documentation of the live. And what began as someone else’s project fuelled a concern over my own representation in archive and documentation, as well as the consolidation of the emphasis from textual play and humour in my solo performances to visuality and minimal aesthetics.’
Helena Goldwater, Performance Artist
Exposures exhibition was first launched at the Bonington Gallery in Nottingham in November 2001 and then presented:
– at the National Review of Live Art Glasgow in February 2002
– at the Tate Liverpool as part of Art Lies and Video Tapes Exhibition in November 2003 ( a selection of images ).
– at John Harsard Gallery in Southampton as part of Live Art on Camera Exhibition in September 2007 ( a selection of images ).
– at Space Gallery in London as part of Live Art on Camera Exhibition in April 2008 ( a selection of images ).
_ at Arnolfini Galley in Bristol as part of In Between Time Festival in February 2015
– at Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast as part of Belfast Photo Festival in June 2015.