Lovers, Liars and Laughter

This work extends Wiebke Leister's earlier interest in the mouth and the photographic portrayal of laughing and smiling, at the heart of her cycle 'Unjoyful Laughter and the Non-Likeness of Photographic Portraiture' (2006).

Her investigation into kissing and being kissed is now placing the lips, which do not only smile but kiss, as a central but absent presence, similarly about our boundaries and how we recognize ourselves and others. In particular, the project looks at the kiss as a metaphorical structure - as a gesture of exchange, desire or demand, telling stories of potential intimacy between giving and taking. It addresses the lover´s kiss as hidden, concealed by the very anatomy of both faces. Tracing the shadow between the embracing profiles, her works play with the invisible and unattainable features of love, including promises and failures of visual representation.

The work was published by the Photography and the Archive Research Centre (PARC) as an issue of the research publication 'Fieldstudy', including the photographic series 'Ever After' alongside the story 'Lovers, Liars and Laughter', the drawings 'Days on End' and the text-based work 'At a Glance', all made in 2008.

'Fieldstudy 11' was launched at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London on 14 November 2008 with a performance by the Shakespearean actor Kenneth Gilbert. Other speakers were Melanie Manchot, AL Rees and Lisa Le Feuvre.

The photographs were also shown as a five meters high outdoor installation on the front of LCC at the Elephant & Castle roundabout for three months during the summer of 2009

This 2008 project consists of the photographic series ‘Ever After’ (8 lambda prints), the text-based work ‘At a Glance’ (80 collages), the monologue ‘Lovers, Liars and Laughter’ (3324 words) and the series of drawings ‘Days on End’ (80 ink drawings).

A selection of the texts and images was published in the artist’s publication, ‘Lovers, Liars and Laughter’. The project was launched with a performance of the monologue read by Kenneth Gilbert accompanied by a 32-piece projection of the photographs (23 mins) at the event ‘On Kissing’ at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London 2008.

The project investigates the kiss as a metaphorical gesture of exchange. It visually connects the unattainable aspects of love with the invisible side of kissing, exploring physical boundaries and how we encounter ourselves in others’ promises and absences. It presents the conceptual model of the ‘Inverted Mask’, which became one of the four photography models Leister developed in the article ´Mona Lisa on a Bad Day’, Journal of Photography and Culture 2010. This research expands on Leister’s earlier project ‘Unjoyful Laughter and the Non-Likeness of Photographic Portraiture’ 2006.

‘Ever After’ was exhibited as a large-scale outdoor installation, London 2009. This series was published with ‘At A Glance’ as a visual essay in the peer-reviewed ‘Journal for Visual Communication’ 2011 and as a model for artistic research in the book ‘Behind the Image’ 2012. The artist’s publication was exhibited at ‘Kasseler Fotoforum’ 2009, and ‘Photobook Show’, London, with documentation online 2012. The research also resulted in national and international invitations to give artist talks and conference papers.