Del Fotoconceptualismo Al Fototableau

Interactions between photography and performance during a chronological period ranging from the so-called nuevos comportamientos artísticos (Spanish conceptual art) at the beginnings of 70s, to the definitive institutionalization of the tableau form in the 80s, are analyzed in this research. This is a complex and not lineal trip, with particular interest in the Spanish context, since some important changes affecting political and cultural life took place during this period, conditioning the process object of the present work. The work tries to discuss those performance theories that emphasize the liveness, and doing so, pushed the photography into the background. By putting those controversies in the scope of nuevos comporamientos, we have created a frame of reference to explain those activities near conceptual art, and then, we have looked for their continuity in certain works carried out during the 80s with neither media visibility, nor critical mediators. With the enthusiastic attitudes of the movida as a background, photography becomes institutionalized whereas performance gets outside of the official aesthetics. The origin of a cultural identity projecting some festive stereotypes onto contemporary art, can be placed in the 80s, being those stereotypes the starting point for a relational Hispanic tradition empowered by the cultural policies in the 90s. By means of restructuring a complicated net of critical genealogies, we have tried to explore some interesting strains related to the legitimacy of the action in the institutional scene, located in the cross between photography and performance in that decade.