The origin of photography lies in the revision of the history of art. The definition of pictorial photography arises from the pioneering photographers who based the construction and themes of their pictures on the memory of art history, on its genres and icons. Over time photography rejected that construction and the photographer became an image hunter. The importance of documentary photography, of photojournalism, of capturing that decisive moment, which turned out to be a moment previously staged by the photographer, gradually changed the idea of photography and its relation to art. The unquestionable fact that the authentic renovation of the photographic medium has not been carried out by photographers but by visual artists has led to a full-fledged revolution in the development of photography, and in society's perception of it. This revolution has changed the idea of documentary photography, the authentic photographic genre. However, photography, in the hands of artists and a new generation of creators who no longer put labels or names on everything they do, who work even-handedly with any tool within their reach, has been ground-breaking in the evolution of the medium. Therefore, this issue of EXIT focuses on the relationship that photography has established with the history of art, how some photographers currently base their works on the great masterpieces, through allusions, direct appropriations, remakes, inspiration, tributes or pure analogies that are in the mind of the beholder and perhaps, unconsciously, in that of the photographer as well.

Editorial: The Construction of Images. Rosa Olivares

Essay: Dèjá Vu. Sergio Rubira

Interview: McDermott & McGough

Portfolios: Dorothée Smith and Esther Teichmann

Photographers: José Ramón Ais, Vanessa Colareta, Mat Collishaw, Nicholas Alan Cope & Dustin Edward Arnold, Sharon Core, Popel Coumou, Rineke Dijkstra, John Dugdale, Elger Esser, Ori Gersht, Luis González Palma, Beate Gütschow, Jitka Hanzlová, Hisaji Hara, Nicholas Hughes, Sarah Jones, Hendrik Kerstens, Ingar Krauss, Justine Kurland, Richard Learoyd, Robert Mapplethorpe, López Moral, Rita Magalhães, Christy Lee Rogers, Miguel Ángel Sánchez, David Benjamin Sherry, and Wolfgang Tillmans.