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Indepth Arts News: "Self/Image: Portraiture from Copley to Close" 2006-08-30 until 2006-12-31 Reynolda House, Museum of American Art Winstion-Salem, NC, USA
The portrait occupies a singular place in the history of American art. As a genre, these representations of self are layered visual accounts of actuality, desire, and projection. Historical portraits—too often taken at face value—are granted a rare authority, a free pass to authenticity. The first lady or military hero must have looked like that. But portraits are negotiations. They are complex bargains between artist, sitter, and society (was the governor really that tall?). The desire to be recognized as an individual produces its own visual language of sly grins that push back upon convention.
Self/Image explores the development of American portraiture from the mid-eighteenth century to the present day. Particular attention is paid to watershed moments of cultural change, such as when British subjects became American citizens and when women broke out of hermetic interiors and took a place in public life for the first time. Another emphasis will be on images of the artist.
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