Skarstedt Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition Self-Portraits, a group show including works by John Coplans, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Robert Mapplethorpe, Yasumasa Morimura, Albert Oehlen, Cindy Sherman, Rudolf Stingel and Andy Warhol.
Once seen as a tool for self-promotion and notoriety, self-portraits are now a conceptual apparatus of history and are at the disposal of anyone who employs it to continue the ever-present mode of Post-Modernism. The approach to self-portraiture has been most frequently executed via four specific genres noted in art history and they are often categorized by the following iconographical themes: Glory, Desire, The Masquerade and Fading.
Andy Warhol’s self-portraits were a very intimate project for him. He only surrounded himself with the most trustworthy companions while he worked. These portraits portray him in all different stages of his life, and speak to his actual appearance at the time. In his Self-Portrait series, Warhol glorifies his appearance and enlightens the viewer with an exact rendering of his stylistic choices throughout his life. Similarly, in Oehlen’s Self-portrait with open mouth (2001), he uses historical techniques of layering thin coats of oil paint in order to achieve a smooth traditional surface along with achieving a very close copy of his actual appearance.
Mike Kelley’s focus on the inevitable abandonment of childhood playthings, which were once so desirable, is present in his self-portrait entitled Ahh…youth. In this piece, photographs of old corroding stuffed animals, like a series of mug shots, flank a photograph of Kelley’s face. The irony of these toys literally being left “in the dust” is emphasized by the presence of Kelley’s face as an adult male.
Yasumasa Morimura and Cindy Sherman work in a very similar vein; both alter their appearances with costumes, props and makeup, deliberately masquerading their appearance in the image. Where Morimura appropriates his photographs from historical masterworks, Sherman only gives the illusion that her work is appropriated from another image or movie. In Daughter of Art History (Princess A), Morimura dresses himself up as Diego Velazquez’s, Infanta Margarita (1956), transparently exposing the influence Western art had on him as a Japanese man. Instead of hiding his ethnicity and gender, he leaves them bare, thus deliberately confusing the viewer. Sherman, on the contrary, alludes to the existence of her photographs in real life, but they are fictitious. In Untitled #153 from the Fairy Tale Series, Sherman depicts the sublime darkness behind adolescent fairy tales by portraying a character laying still in a mossy background, revealing the possible death of the protagonist, whose story should end “happily every after.”
A deliberate display of individual mortality is seen through the gimmicks found in Martin Kippenberger’s self-portraits. In Untitled (self-portrait) (1988), he painted himself scantily clad, donning just a pair of white underwear and a balloon mask. The underwear, a sign of him likening himself to Pablo Picasso, reveals his expanding belly, while the balloon on his head and in the background mimic his ballooning figure, as well as the fading of his health.
Once seen as a tool for self-promotion and notoriety, self-portraits are now a conceptual apparatus of history and are at the disposal of anyone who employs it to continue the ever-present mode of Post-Modernism. The approach to self-portraiture has been most frequently executed via four specific genres noted in art history and they are often categorized by the following iconographical themes: Glory, Desire, The Masquerade and Fading.
Andy Warhol’s self-portraits were a very intimate project for him. He only surrounded himself with the most trustworthy companions while he worked. These portraits portray him in all different stages of his life, and speak to his actual appearance at the time. In his Self-Portrait series, Warhol glorifies his appearance and enlightens the viewer with an exact rendering of his stylistic choices throughout his life. Similarly, in Oehlen’s Self-portrait with open mouth (2001), he uses historical techniques of layering thin coats of oil paint in order to achieve a smooth traditional surface along with achieving a very close copy of his actual appearance.
Mike Kelley’s focus on the inevitable abandonment of childhood playthings, which were once so desirable, is present in his self-portrait entitled Ahh…youth. In this piece, photographs of old corroding stuffed animals, like a series of mug shots, flank a photograph of Kelley’s face. The irony of these toys literally being left “in the dust” is emphasized by the presence of Kelley’s face as an adult male.
Yasumasa Morimura and Cindy Sherman work in a very similar vein; both alter their appearances with costumes, props and makeup, deliberately masquerading their appearance in the image. Where Morimura appropriates his photographs from historical masterworks, Sherman only gives the illusion that her work is appropriated from another image or movie. In Daughter of Art History (Princess A), Morimura dresses himself up as Diego Velazquez’s, Infanta Margarita (1956), transparently exposing the influence Western art had on him as a Japanese man. Instead of hiding his ethnicity and gender, he leaves them bare, thus deliberately confusing the viewer. Sherman, on the contrary, alludes to the existence of her photographs in real life, but they are fictitious. In Untitled #153 from the Fairy Tale Series, Sherman depicts the sublime darkness behind adolescent fairy tales by portraying a character laying still in a mossy background, revealing the possible death of the protagonist, whose story should end “happily every after.”
A deliberate display of individual mortality is seen through the gimmicks found in Martin Kippenberger’s self-portraits. In Untitled (self-portrait) (1988), he painted himself scantily clad, donning just a pair of white underwear and a balloon mask. The underwear, a sign of him likening himself to Pablo Picasso, reveals his expanding belly, while the balloon on his head and in the background mimic his ballooning figure, as well as the fading of his health.