The self portrait, an intimate and personal genre that runs in parallel yet independently from the portrait, offers us the chance to identify the artist, to put a face to the name. But what leads an artist to make a self-portrait? Throughout history, from Durero to Rembrandt, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Man Ray to Warhol, many artists have left the legacy of their own image; as a practice that fluctuates between technical exercise and self affirmation, between displays of narcissism and self parody, or as a simple mark of authorship.

Just as the mask hides as well as it reveals, the self-portrait reveals a personality and searches for an identity in the creative chaos, from the most austere of poses to the most allegoric and excessively staged, from the solitude of an empty backdrop to the most put on of disguises. Its representation, albeit only a part of the picture, juggles around meanings and in the end presents an image that the artist wishes to give of them self.  

This issue of EXIT is structured around four main chapters: Myself, with a general text by Juan Antonio Ramírez and portfolios by John Coplans and Esther Ferrer; Je est un autre, with a text by Luis Francisco Pérez and portfolios by Yasumasa Morimura and Jorge Molder; I and the others, with an article by José Luis Brea and portfolio from Lucas Samaras and Ryan Weideman; and I in movement, an approach to the idea of the self portrait and autobiography in video format with text from Susana Blas and portfolio from Vito Acconci and Pierrick Sorin.  

This issue also presents images from the works of artists: Bill Viola, Bruce Nauman, Patty Chang, Claude Cahun, Pierre Molinier, Francesca Woodman, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Nan Goldin, Robert Mapplethorpe, Giacomo Costa, Paloma Navares, Sarah Lucas, Fen Weng, Arnulf Rainer, Júlia Ventura, Duane Michals, Jürgen Klauke, Fernando Sinaga, Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Javier Pérez, Alix Lambert, Orlan, Andy Warhol, Gilbert & George, Iñigo Manglano-Valle, Gaüeca, Edgard de Souza, Elke Krystufek, Ixone Sádaba, Alex Francés and Douglas Gordon.