Bold photos put the self in selfie—just not how you think
No duck faces, just meaningful interpretations of personal identity visualized in diverse ways
What’s the difference between a selfie and a self portrait? A new exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Art attempts to make a distinction between the two modes of photographic self-representation, putting internet-era imaging in dialogue with the long tradition of artists using the camera to exert selfhood.
“With the selfie firmly in place, it is a particularly prescient moment to revisit the enduring pursuit of the photographic self,” writes curator Deborah Irmas in the exhibition catalog for This Is Not A Selfie.
It’s a pursuit that has existed nearly as long as photography itself, when early operators began turning the camera on themselves as a way to claim agency over the new medium. Photography, like mobile communications today, was engendering a monumental shift in messaging and vision. When the famed 19th-century photographer Nadar took his own picture in 1863, he wasn’t just playing dress up: He was experimenting with the latest tools for self-expression.
This kind of meta reflexivity has always been woven into the fabric of photography. A development, as charted by This is Not a Selfie, which follows disparate threads, from the performative construction of Cindy Sherman’s 1970s Untitled Film Stills to Claude Cahun’s intricate collage work to the digital manipulations of Chino Otsuka. In all, these images deal with memory, time, and presentation in ways particular to the photographic process. The camera, we know, is a wonderful tool for looking outward at the world. But since photography’s arrival, it’s also served well the inner dialogue of artists looking for new ways of asserting their place in it.
This Is Not A Selfie: Photographic Self-Portraits from the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection is on view at the San Jose Museum of Art through January 14, 2018.
