In 1973, a Toronto magazine published the photographic book Open Passport by Montréal photographer John Max. A formally innovative narrative sequence about the dissolution of an artist’s marriage, it has been a touchstone of Canadian photography since its publication. Simultaneously autobiographical, fictional, and experimental, Open Passport is a unique response to the representations of self and subjectivity in American photography of the 1970s, which championed the idea of photographers as authors and the book as privileged support for their images. Initially produced as an exhibition accompanied by a slideshow, Open Passport is a work that uses multiple supports for disseminating a photographic narration about the self. Using previously unavailable materials from John Max’s archives, this article argues that these different supports should be considered as multiple variants of a single work, which upsets the hierarchical logic distinguishing original works from adaptations or derived works. This has important methodological consequences for the emerging field of photobook studies, which has given primacy to the history of books over that of exhibitions. The notion of performance is used to explain the relationship between the work and its supports, showing in turn the importance of the processes of editing and sequencing in the definition of the photographic work of art.

中文翻译：

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作为变体的写真集：展示、投影和发布 John Max 的 Open Passport

1973 年，多伦多杂志出版了蒙特利尔摄影师约翰·马克斯 (John Max) 的摄影书《开放护照》。这是一个关于艺术家婚姻解体的正式创新叙事序列，自出版以来一直是加拿大摄影的试金石。同时具有自传性、虚构性和实验性的 Open Passport 是对 1970 年代美国摄影中自我和主观性表现的独特回应，它支持将摄影师作为作者的想法，并将这本书作为对其图像的特权支持。Open Passport 最初是作为一个带有幻灯片放映的展览而制作的，它是一项使用多种支持来传播关于自我的摄影叙事的作品。使用 John Max 档案中以前无法获得的材料，本文认为，这些不同的支持应被视为单个作品的多个变体，这打破了区分原创作品与改编作品或衍生作品的层次逻辑。这对于新兴的摄影书研究领域具有重要的方法论意义，该领域已将书籍史置于展览史之上。表演的概念被用来解释作品与其支持者之间的关系，进而表明编辑和排序过程在定义摄影艺术作品中的重要性。这使得书籍的历史比展览的历史更重要。表演的概念被用来解释作品与其支持者之间的关系，进而表明编辑和排序过程在定义摄影艺术作品中的重要性。这使得书籍的历史比展览的历史更重要。表演的概念被用来解释作品与其支持者之间的关系，进而表明编辑和排序过程在定义摄影艺术作品中的重要性。