Marina Abramovic, Reza Afisina, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Sophie Calle, Andrea Fraser, Rodney Graham, Christian Jankowski, Yayoi Kusama, Nikki S. Lee, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Matt Mullican, Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, Adrian Paci, Johannes Wohnseifer

Despite Conceptual Art's disavowal of narrative and self-expression, a number of contemporary artists are mining autobiographical and biographical genres. Some artists have not hesitated to express deep feelings about the world, themselves and the artist's role. Others have wrestled with questions of how to represent the self, sometimes trying to avoid clichés, at others deliberately appropriating them. Drawing inspiration from events in their own lives, and setting up situations that blur the division between art and life, several artists explore art's potential for transformation and catharsis. Underlying these works is an interest in the relationship between social conformism and autonomy, brain chemistry and emotion, automatic behavior and self determination, the fictional and the real.

Sophie Calle's Exquisite Pain (2000) (see Card 1) presents the artist's attempt to gain distance on her experience of romantic rejection in a series of photographs and embroidered texts. As in Calle's renown works The Sleepers (1979) and Suite Venetienne (1980), an event in her life becomes the catalyst for art.

Heartbreak also preoccupies Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay in Live To Tell, (2002) (see Card 2) a video of surveillance footage of Nemerofsky Ramsay performing Madonna's ballad as a choral piece.

Parts (2005), by Nikki S. Lee comprises photographs of Lee in which her image is cropped from that of the man who originally accompanied her. Evoking the pain of break-up, the sucacession of social personae that Lee assumes also suggests the malleability of identity while we are under the spell of romantic love.

This experience of being under the influence is explored by artists from Matt Mullican (see Card 3), who makes paintings while in a hypnotic state, to Rodney Graham, whose Halcion Sleep (1994) shows him sleeping while driven around after he has consumed the sleeping pill Halcion.

In Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Eye Contact, (2006) the spectator influences the work of art, creating a picture that interacts with the shadows of former viewers.

The Present (2001) (see Card 4 and Card 5) by Eija-Liisa Ahtila depicts psychosis is a form of influence, dramatizing several women's experience of madness.

Taking a more whimsical approach to psychological distress, Christian Jankowski's Desperately Seeking Art (1997) (see Card 6) shows him consulting a psychotherapist for his artist's block. Also by Jankowsi, Angels of Revenge (2006) presents contestants at a horror film convention reciting their violent revenge fantasies.

Violence against the self is the subject of several works. In Song of a Manhattan Suicide Addict (1999), Yayoi Kusama sings against her trademark polka dot backdrop.

Her theme links with the tongue-in-cheek reference of Johannes Wohnseifer's painting Why not commit suicide as an expression of happiness (2007) (see Card 7).

Self-inflicted suffering also features in Reza Afisina's What (2001) (see Card 8), a video depicting Afisina alternately reading from the Bible and slapping himself.

Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay's Lyric (2004) is a form of durational art that shows the artist singing fragments from pop songs organized by category—flight, madness, waiting, crying, "Please, please, please, please!"—over the course of a day.

Marina Abramovic has explored the limits of physical and psychic endurance since the 1970s. Lips of Thomas (2006) (see Card 9), a photograph of herself with a five-point communist star carved into her belly, was made during her performance Seven Easy Pieces in which she restaged iconic performances by herself and other artists. In The Onion (1995) (see Card 10), Abramovic eats an onion while complaining in a voiceover about her life. By the end of the tape her eyes stream and her nose runs, leading the viewer to question whether her emotions are real, staged, or a bit of both.

Also tackling the border between theatricality and authenticity, Andrea Fraser's Official Welcome (2001) (see Card 11), shows her stripping while mimicking speeches given by artist celebrities. When Fraser chokes up while recounting her own 'artist's story,' the gap between performance and reality becomes disconcertingly blurred.

Adrian Paci also riffs on the artist-as-performer in The Mourner (2002), a film in which he stages his own funeral in the presence of a professional mourner.