Mirror Mirror

Mirror Mirror presents works in a variety of media from thirty-two international emerging and established artists and one artist collective to plumb the relationship between identity, cultural norms, and representation. In the most abbreviated of forms, a portrait is a depiction of a person, usually a face, occasionally a torso, sometimes more of the body, or even a symbolic presentation of an aspect of an individual’s character. The artists in the show have approached the subject of portraiture in a multitude of ways. Historically, portraiture was utilized in service of the ruling classes, and some of the works in the exhibition explore the machinations of the powerful, touching upon the fraught histories of colonialism, slavery, American inference abroad, and eugenic practices. Photography is presented in both documentary modes and as a means to deconstruct representations of femininity, adolescence, and motherhood. Other artists work in non-traditional media, exploring the portrait painted by our data and bacteria, and radical possibilities of self-invention through new virtual and bio technologies. Taken as a whole, the works in Mirror Mirror communicate the connected nature of representation and self-determination.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 140-page illustrated catalog with essays from Susan Bright, Amanda Cachia, Nell Painter, Dorothy Santos, Jay Stanley, Anne Swartz, Jorge Daniel Veneciano, and Carla Christopher Waid, amongst others. Mirror Mirror includes a dynamic schedule of free, public and educational programs that include a performance of David Antonio Cruz’s green,howiwantyougreen; artist talks from Kevin Darmanie, Riva Lehrer, Peggie Miller, Kevin Blythe Sampson, Laura Splan; curator tours; workshops, and more.