Portraits by Waiters, Sveinn Fannar Jóhannsson

Portraits by Waiters contains images of Sveinn Fannar Jóhannsson posing in front of his own camera in different rooms, on different occasions. When reading the photos one will follow his private daily life and may soon notice that he appears as bored, isolated and eager at the same time. In his exploration of photography as a means of documentation and the contemporary use and status of the medium, Jóhannsson has created a visual diary of himself.

During an eight-week residency in Cologne, Germany, Jóhannsson asked waiters and waitresses to capture his portrait while eating dinner. By posing in front of the camera Jóhannsson reverses the role of the artist and the role of the photographic sitter. The operator is replaced by an anonymous person who, uncontrolled and forced, is capturing a portrait of the artist whom consequently becomes the subject of the image. In this sense he removes himself from authorship and demonstrates art as a process and transformation rather than an outcome of the photograph as an aesthetic object of art.

Published by Multinational Enterprises
Softcover
120 pages
148 × 200 mm