The image of adolescence permeates today’s society becoming one of its most common icons. From publicity to pornography, somewhere between childhood and maturity, perfect teenage bodies feed the pages of magazines, cinema and television.

But adolescence is more than that: a moment of confusion, doubt, insecurity, search for identity, the first contact with sex and love and also anorexia, traumas, solitude, years that can leave their mark forever. Today’s society not only has the desire to be youthful but also many of the adolescent quirks, especially the angst to be young forever, that touch of irresponsibility with someone to guide and protect us.

Youth and its world is a reoccurring topic in the history of photography, particularly in current photography which is represented in this issue of EXIT #4 Teenage world. The central artist in this edition is Australian Tracey Moffatt with her work on adolescent family life and the scars this leaves. The portfolios devoted to Jouko Lehtola, Céline van Balen, Rineke Dijkstra and Fernando Moleres complete this in-depth look, with a wide range of portraits taken of young people today.

Together with these artists we can find the works of Beat Streuli, Sally Mann, Lewis Hine, Cristina García Rodero, Hellen van Meene, Bernard Faucon, Richard Prince, Bertrand Desprez, Keith Cottingham, Vik Muniz, Lise Sarfati, Larry Clark, Anthony Goicolea, Wolfgang Tillmans, Jeff Wall, Pere Formiguera, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Germán Gómez, Denis Darzacq, Sharon Lockhart, Miguel Trillo and Slater Bradley amongst other.

The texts this issue have been written by José Luis Brea, Pascal Bruckner, Marta Gili, Martin Henstchel, Rosa Olivares and Celia Prado.