Writing with Photos

Literature’s Influence on Daniel Blaufuks

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51427/com.jcs.2025.8.3

Keywords:

Daniel Blaufuks, Georges Perec, Gonçalo M. Tavares, Attempting Exhaustion, Matteo Lost His Job, Collected Short Stories

Abstract

In Daniel Blaufuks’s prolific career the relationship between photography and the other arts emerges as a pervasive feature. The artist often draws from writers and musicians such as Georges Perec, W. G. Sebald, Jorge Luis Borges, or Lou Reed, amongst others, not only to inspire the titles of his works, and the development of his projects, but has also looked to formal aspects, such as the editorial shape of short stories collections, to construct his own photobooks. In this, a parallel between the puncture of a snapshot and an incisive moment in a short story may be made. Additionally, Blaufuks’s projects have themselves inspired other artists and writers. The following article examines three works, two by Blaufuks, Collected Short Stories (2003) and Attempting Exhaustion (2016), and one prompted by him, Gonçalo M. Tavares’s Matteo Perdeu o Emprego (2010), to consider the tenuous border between literature and photography and how the artist traverses them.

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Author Biography

Sandra Camacho, ICNOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal

Sandra Camacho holds a PhD in Comparative Studies from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon. She is currently developing a postdoctoral project, Artistic Explorations of Technological Limitations in 21st Century Portuguese Photography, at ICNOVA, FCSH-Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Her main research areas include the archive as artistic practice, media archaeology, interarts and intermedia studies.

References

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Blaufuks, Daniel. Attempting Exhaustion. Lisbon, Galeria Vera Cortês, November 26, 2016 to January 14, 2017. https://www.veracortes.com/dropbox/Daniel-Blaufuks-Attempting-Exhaustion-Galeria-Vera-Cortes_1.pdf.

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Published

2025-12-30

How to Cite

Camacho, Sandra. 2025. “Writing With Photos: Literature’s Influence on Daniel Blaufuks ”. Compendium: Journal of Comparative Studies | Revista De Estudos Comparatistas, no. 8 (December). Lisboa, Portugal:25-38. https://doi.org/10.51427/com.jcs.2025.8.3.

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