The Conventions of Identity

The exhibition Look at Me! Portraits and Other Fictions from the ”la Caixa” Contemporary Art Collection 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.

Through the exhibition we will be sharing about the artists and sections in Look At Me!. “The Conventions of Identity ” is the second section and it consists the artists: Janine Antoni, Stefan Hablützel, Roni Horn, Pedro Mora, Bruce Nauman, Cindy Sherman, Sue Williams.

Portraits are inevitably subject to social recognition and ideological changes. This area comprises the works that question cultural conventions of gender and race, and the aesthetic strategies of images of film stars. It also presents the range of techniques used in portraiture and the symbols that define individuals socially. Basically, most of these works tackle the complexity of identity and its representation, especially when this notion is no longer stable and predetermined but fluid and ambiguous, like our contemporary world, rooted in perpetual change.