Featuring artists from across GRIMM’s network and beyond, Self-Portraits presents a challenge to this selection of acclaimed contemporary artists to apply their distinctive style to the framework of self-portraiture. The resulting work enacts a shared moment of recognition between artist and viewer, reflecting the spectrum of emotion from introspective to joyful encounters throughout the exhibition. The self-portraits presented across GRIMM’s New York and Amsterdam spaces are direct, lively, intimate, and authentic, true to our contemporary confessional age. Taking a classical, painterly approach, as opposed to the ‘anything goes' trend from the 1980s to the 2000s, when performance, video, and photography dominated the genre, and where the self-portrait seemed to focus on sound, the body (or part thereof), or a comment on a general metaphysical state, the works included here are the result of painters looking directly at themselves and depicting what they see. For some artists, the exhibition marks their first self-portrait; Matthias Weischer and Alex Dordoy among them. Others, such as Philip Akkerman, have made a career out of limiting their practice to only painting self-portraits. The exhibition aims to capture a ‘state of being’ at this specific moment in time for each artist. In the era of the ‘selfie’, taken on a daily basis by millions to present a veneer of success, experience, beauty, or aspiration - the true sense of ’self’ can be overlooked or masked. The self-portrait offers the potential to reflect not only the surface but also the psychological interior of the artist, adapting to each artist’s distinctive voice. A group exhibition about self-portraiture in 2024, featuring young and mid-career artists engaging with this centuriesold practice of self-reflection and contemplation seems apt, provocative, and challenging.
In New York, Self-Portraits will feature work by Philip Akkerman, Charles Avery, Gabriella Boyd, Anthony Cudahy, Alex Dordoy, Louise Giovanelli, Tommy Harrison, Nathana.lle Herbelin, Neo Matloga, Rosalind Nashashibi, Polina Pak, Emil Sands, Benjamin Sasserson, and Rafał Topolewski.
