Olivares, Rosa
I'll be your mirror

PATTY CHANG, Fuente, 1999

There is a vital period of time in our lives, from our birth and the first time we take a look at ourselves. It is a time of formation and deformation. It is all that time during which we become impregnated with the traumas of childhood and sexuality which are to accompany us for ever, whether we want to know this or not. From the moment we are born, we look at ourselves in a fragmented manner: our hands, our feet - we even suck them. When we discover who we are physically, in one long, single look, we have already formed an idea of beauty; we have created a whole series of stereotypes which have a lot to do with others, particularly with our parents. But even if we do not know our external appearance, we have already created a concept of ourselves: we are the self around which the universe revolves.

When we finally see ourselves, there before us appears someone who we would not recognise in any other circumstances. The theory of the other, the problems of identity, all sorts of complexes, grow up around that person who is looking at us, surprised, from a mirror. Only shortly after that meeting, the exchanging of glances with ourselves now becomes habitual when we pass by a shop window, look in a mirror, a surface which reflects us, as if we had come across someone who is now more than our friend.

In literature, the mirror plays a role which is somewhere between magic and the perverse. We ask it if there is anyone more beautiful than ourselves, like Snow White's wicked stepmother, although in our case, luckily, it does not answer. Alice went through the mirror, setting out on a magic journey for which she needed neither a ticket nor luggage, not even any lysergic acid. And the fact is that sometimes the imagination is stronger than any other drug. Art was to become that marvellous mirror which, over the course of the centuries, would return to us an image which was sometimes marvellous, sometimes distorted. Art, as in the case of the portrait of Dorian Gray, was to be the mirror and mirage within which time passed, which would take us to old age, while we ourselves would remain forever young and beautiful. And within art, the portrait and self-portrait were to foment the specular idea of the image. However, it was naturally photography which was to banish any doubts about this. The desire, not only to be the fairest of them all, the obsession over that return of looks, the search for a wall where we can find ourselves, finds in photography, video and films greater creative energy. Not in vain are these new languages taking shape as structures which extend from the idea of a window (an inexpungible window with painting) which may be inherent within the film screen, the TV screen, even within the specular medium par excellence: photography.

PIERRE ET GILLES, Casanova -Enzo-, 1995

In the following pages of this magazine which has not yet come to life and will do so in this next century, the 21st, one can find images from the origins of photography up to the present use of video, cinema and the new technologies which, once again, pose that eternal question which we all ask in front of the mirror: Who are we? And these mirrors not only return our own gaze to us, but they broaden and lengthen it, physically and conceptually. They prolong the idea of that return of our own image, fragmenting the psychological, literary and artistic content. Many are the artists who make up this issue no. 0 of Exit but they could have been many more. However, we did not wish to be an exhaustive catalogue of possibilities, rather simply a mirror in which all of you could look at yourselves, and recognise yourselves. Recognise yourselves in some of the images, the texts, the phrases, the intentions of all or one of those people who have made this new publication possible - which may be as old as the history of art, or as new as a child's first look into a mirror; as different as is each time we see ourselves, we look at ourselves, we recognise ourselves, and we photograph ourselves.

A mirror is always a mysterious surface, from which we do not know what may come towards us, either the recognition of our own beauty, of ourselves, the terror of another face, foreign to our own, or the blackness of a well which drags us to another place. All these images which begin where these lines end, talk of distortion, magic, mystery, about ourselves, about our curiosity and our egotism. And this issue centres upon two radically different aspects: on the one hand, an already classic artist such as Duane Michals and his eternal return to the passing of time, identity, the mystery of things and their relationship with us, the distortion of the image and surprise, games, irony. A dialogue is established with Valérie Belin, a young, unknown French female artist who, in opposition to the multiplicity of Michals' images, sees the idea of the mirror as a world in itself, as fragility and interminable reflection. And the choir is made up of dozens of men and women who at some time have leaned towards a mirror with a camera in their hands, seeking themselves or other people, other places. Now we, with our look into the mirror, and with the images which accompany these words in texts and interviews, continue the search and prolong the meeting.

A broken mirror brings seven years of bad luck. We do not know the years of luck that beginning the life of a magazine can bring us, recomposing fragments of mirror which revolve, like satellites of an unknown galaxy which has been close to us for years. Not many years - perhaps the oldest image in these pages is the 1853 "Venetian Mirror" by Thurston Thompson, an exception in a magazine which appears with a new century, the 21st. The last decades are those which are most reflected in these pages, paper mirrors in which dozens of artists from all over the world, of all nationalities and all ages, look at themselves. Some are very well known, representatives of styles and fashions; others are practically unknown - but that is irrelevant. Exit is not a fashion magazine, nor does it deal exclusively with art or photography. It is certainly not a magazine centred on the what is current, an ephemeral moment in time, as are all moments. Exit is a magazine for reading and looking at, to reflect upon, and to enjoy. To keep and bring out again at any moment.

I said that perhaps it was not such a new magazine, in spite of the fact that it has not yet come into being, because with Exit we hope to create again a publication for the enjoyment and pleasure not only of those who read it, but also of those who create it. In Exit one finds the new technologies and latest advances in communication with the composure and contentment of the most devoted graphic arts design. A magazine is for reading, and a magazine devoted to culture and images is also for looking at. But let us not forget that it is also a cultural choice, a stance one takes when faced with life and subjects which worry us or entertain us, which we like or dislike.

So, every three months we shall find in Exit texts and images to share and think about, to look at and understand a new moment, a new century, through the works and the thinking of men and women from all over the world and from many different fields. All this comes with the common denominator of the most up-to-date images in art: photography, video, creative cinema, Internet, and everything that is gradually adding to those already unlimited possibilities for visual creation, without ever forgetting that plastic arts are also a line of creation of thought, without attributing any special importance to the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. Some images, however, are worthless, while there are words which can kill. Image and words, together, can help us to live, think and enjoy. That is the image which we would like to see when we move towards the mirror of Exit. We too want to be its mirror.