If Not a Selfie, What Is It?

Lisa Anne Auerbach’s Take this Knitting Machine and Shove It, 2009, Inkjet print, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection; Gift of Deborah Irmas

Selfies, those winks of shutters’ eyes that hold the ego at arm’s length, are many things to different people. They are handheld mirrors. They are markers of moments. They make the world a background, filtering it through the individual. Being instantaneous, they lack the darkroom’s ability to manipulate, adjust, and alter.

By Garrett Rowlan

This lack of perspective is seemingly why the current exhibit at the Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery at ArtCenter’s Hillside campus is called, “This Is Not A Selfie.” The 65 photographers featured in the exhibit have labored not only to distort their own images, but to liberate the self from the frivolous, instantaneous, and solipsistic ego.

Homage is one path of liberation. This Yasumasa Morimura’s “inner dialogue” with Frida Kahlo has him made-up as the Mexican icon, and Jennifer Moon’s poise in a beret and wicker chair is clearly a reference to Huey Newton. Whether these self-portraits are homages or appropriations is left up to the viewer. Clearly, however, Gordon Douglas’ wig-wearing portrait as Kurt Cobain, Andy Warhol, and Marilyn Monroe is farcical. After seeing these works, one is inclined to see a cultural referent in every image. Thus, Dennis Keeley’s “Self-portrait with Father” has the artist (and the Director of the Photography and Image Department at ArtCenter) holding a picture whose similarity to Franz Kafka may be accidental, may be deliberate.

One does not think of the Selfie as an expression of gravitas, and certain portraits in the exhibition are weighty in intent. Robert Mapplethorp’s self-portrait with death head (when his own AIDS-fueled death march was well underway) is a reminder of mortality, while John Borofsky has his face covered by numbers, suggesting an intake photo at a concentration camp.

Cindy Sherman’s Untitled, Film Still #5, 1977, Gelatin-silver print, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection

Finding a context for self-portraits of Diane Arbus, Cindy Sherman, and Catherine Opie is not difficult, as these artists come with their own ready-made reputations of social realism, the grotesque, and parody, as in Sherman’s case.

The baggage that the sum total of all the photos suggest is perhaps summarized by Amalia Pica’s massive image of herself, backside view, holding a megaphone and facing an empty meadow. “Sorry for the Metaphor,” it is called.

The exhibit is likely to distort one’s own self-perception that it takes a second to realize—while facing a stretched and flattened image of oneself—that one is looking into a funhouse mirror and not a perceptual alteration, caused by this fascinating exhibit, on display through June 3.

Date
Through Sunday, June 03, 2018
Location
ArtCenter College of Design
Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery

Garrett Rowlan’s first novel, “To Die, To Sleep” is newly published and available on Amazon.