Fondation Beyeler, Basel
September 2021
September 19, 2021–January 2, 2022
CLOSE-UP brings together nine women artists whose work focuses on the depiction of the human figure in the form of portraits and self-portraits and who occupy prominent positions within the history of modern art from 1870 to the present day. The exhibition centers on these artists’ specific perceptions and personal vision of the world that finds expression through portraits of themselves and others. By juxtaposing these artists, it becomes possible to understand how these artists’ view of their subject shifts between the second half of the 19th century and today and to appreciate what is reflected in that view and what makes it significant.
The contextual parameters for the exhibition begin at the point when it first became possible for women artists in Europe and America to become professionally active on a broad basis. During this same period, a radical reassessment of ideas pertaining to the individual triggered a profound shift in the notion of the portrait. Just as impressionism ushered in a transformation of classical portraiture, emphasizing the ephemeral over eternal qualities, the beginning of the 20th century saw artists experiment with altogether relinquishing any notion of likeness. Subsequently, the portrait turned into a form of expression to explore new conceptions of subjectivity and possibilities of representation. The artists featured in the exhibition provide an exemplary illustration of this trajectory. While the exhibition does not intend to give a history of portraiture since the inception of modernity, each artist’s body of work presents a specific form of portraiture that is rooted in and arises from their respective time.
The exhibition opens with Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) and Mary Cassatt (1844–1926). The two artists helped shape impressionism and became important role models for subsequent generations of women painters. The work of Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) probably presents the most complex form of the portrait, particularly the self-portrait, in the exhibition. Kahlo’s self-portraits are unmistakable representations of the artist, yet they do not attempt to capture the real self. Rather, they are highly constructed self-portraits, but no less authentic for being so. A new section of the exhibition begins with Marlene Dumas (b. 1953), followed by Cindy Sherman (b. 1954) and Elizabeth Peyton (b. 1965), as contemporary portraiture takes center stage with three very different positions. Common to all three artists is the fact that their perception and experience of reality are shaped and influenced by mass media and the power of its imagery. Each of their approaches to portraiture expresses this in a different way.
Exhibition Catalogue: 9 Women Artists and Their Models. Edited by Theodora Vischer. Fondation Beyeler, Basel, and Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, Germany