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