Torrance Art Museum - FYI - The Reflected Gaze

 

Torrance Art Museum
3320 Civic Center
Torrance, CA 90509, USA

www.torranceartmuseum.com

 

 

FYI - The Reflected Gaze - Self Portraiture Today
Curated by Max Presneill

 

January 16 – February 20, 2010
Opening Reception January 16, 6:00pm – 9:00pm

 

Justin Bower, Chuck Close, Emily Counts, Ariel Erestingcol, Mark Greenwold, Julie Heffernan, Damien Hirst, Per Huttner, KAWS, Tom LaDuke, Hung Liu, Jennifer Nehrbass, Gavin Nolan, Fahamu Pecou, Dane Picard, Frank Ryan, Peter Sudar, Terri Thomas, Holly Topping, Alexandra Wiesenfeld, Cindy Wright and Liat Yossifor

 

 

 

 

KAWS
Permanent Thirty-Three
2008
Painted bronze, series of 33 unique colors
11 x 6.25 x 9.5 inches
Courtesy of the Honor Fraser Gallery

 

 

One of the basic primary forms of painting is the self-portrait. With a long and distinguished history the self-portrait has told us about people, their times and their attitudes. They tell us of scrutiny, of desire, of ego and of the passage of time too, but they can also seem like a whispered secret sometimes, that winks knowingly to us of shared knowledge and experiences and has the added frisson for us of knowing that this is the artist ‘talking’ directly to us through time and geography. A great self-portrait tells you something of the artist but of ourselves too.

 

 

 

Hung Liu,
Rat Year 2008
2008
oil on linen and mixed media on wood panel
64 x 100 inches
Courtesy of the Walter Maciel Gallery

 

 

Following the first known self-portrait by Jan van Eyck, in 1433, to Durer’s self promotional works and the haunting self-portraits of Rembrandt, art history has since been full of the subjective gaze of the artist upon themselves. Today the practice continues, often for very widely differing conceptual reasons, but the telling self study still hints at mortality as well as exploring that strange meeting point where the introspective self gaze meets the objective outward look and attunes itself in order to displace the subjective/objective dichotomy.

These self-portraits acknowledge and play with this, telling us about the artist and telling us about modes of representation, about a time and place and last, but by no means least, about us.

 

 

 
Chuck Close
Self-Portrait/Five Part, State II
2009
Jacquard tapestry, ed. of 6
79 x 232 inches
Courtesy of the artist, in collaboration with Magnolia Editions, and PaceWildenstein

 

 

 

Terri Thomas
Foundlings
2009
Swarovski crystals, oil on canvas
58 x 90 inches
Courtesy of the artist

 

 

 

Tom LaDuke
Untitled (Self-Portrait)
2001
Castilene, watercolor, glass beads, Horizon model kit
12 x 5.5 x 4.5 inches
Courtesy of Dr. David Tonnemacher and Angles Gallery

 

www.torranceartmuseum.com