Portraiture is often expected to capture the essence of a person, their fundamental characteristics, but ‘Portraiture Now’ at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington is a deliberate challenge to that concept. The six exhibiting artists (David Antonio Cruz, Carlee Fernandez, María Martínez-Cañas, Rachelle Mozman, Karen Miranda Rivadaneira, and Michael Vasquez) create portraits that are obviously staged, and often ambiguous, to demonstrate how portraiture is used not to reflect somebody’s personality, but to construct it.
Click here for the curator’s introduction to the exhibition…
‘Portraiture Now: Staging the Self’ is at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, from 22 August 2014–12 April 2015.
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