ISTANBUL.- The Pera Museum is presenting the exhibition Look at Me!: Portraits and Other Fictions from the ”la Caixa” Contemporary Art Collection. The exhibition examines portraiture, one of the oldest artistic genres, through a significant number of works of our times. Paintings, photographs, sculptures and videos shape a labyrinth of gazes that invite spectators to reflect themselves in the social mirror of portraits.
As Nimfa Bisbe Molin, the curator of the exhibition and the head of ”la Caixa” Banking Foundation Contemporary Art Collection, mentions in her article, “Portraiture today encompasses multiple ways of producing images of the human condition and exploring the complex notion of identity.” Divided into four thematic sections, “Spotlight on Emotion”, “The Conventions of Identity”, “The Memory of the Face”, and “Masks and Other Fictions”, the exhibition presents the works of Janine Antoni, Eduardo Arroyo, Juan Navarro Baldeweg, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Christian Boltanski, Rineke Dijkstra, Marlene Dumas, Esther Ferrer, Günther Förg, Curro González, Stefan Hablützel, Roni Horn, Sharon Lockhart, Pedro Mora, Vik Muniz, Óscar Muñoz, Bruce Nauman, Carlos Pazos, Cindy Sherman, Antoni Tàpies, Gillian Wearing, and Sue Williams.
The works assembled in this exhibition examine concepts of truth, appearance and representation, besides memory and fiction. Some put the normative canons of portraiture to the test, revealing its ruses and the conventions of society. Painting exposes masks and make-up, whereas photography experiments with the potential of fiction to produce disconcerting effects of reality. Some artists are interested in the anonymity of portraits, while others dissect social roles and address the problems of representing identity. Some works define a figure or a face, while others depict some of the distinctive symbols of our society.
The portrait is a compendium of matter and spirit. Hopes and desires clash with the conventions and stereotypes of portraiture. Time, history and post-truth splatter and soak the contemporary interpretation of the portrait and self-portrait in our modern-day world, so complexly crammed with images. Visibility and opacity are inseparable in the current definition of the portrait. Studying and seeing the world through portraits is a real and fascinating possibility.
For all its seeming clarity and formal transparency, the portrait is a dark place that beckons, a labyrinth full of possibilities and paths that inevitably draw the curious spectator inwards.
The ”la Caixa” Contemporary Art Collection
The "la Caixa" Contemporary Art Collection was established in 1985 and now comprises nearly one thousand works, which serve as the basis for thematic exhibitions that address universal issues and current concerns. The collection ranges from the European post-war period to the present day and includes representatives of every country, style and movement. Its projects are characterised by a cross-cutting approach that aims to highlight commonalities and affinities between artists of very different generations and backgrounds, including some of the most important names in contemporary art.
The exhibition catalogue of ‘Look at Me!: Portraits and Other Fictions from the ”la Caixa” Contemporary Art Collection’ includes a foreword by Elisa Duran, Deputy General Director of "la Caixa" Banking Foundation, and articles by Nimfa Bisbe Molin, Virginia Torrente and Lorena Amorós. The exhibition is on view at the Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey between 07 December 2017 - 04 March 2018.
