ASIAN PORTRAITS
MARCH 22 - MAY 22, 2022

The portrait is an artistic genre with ancient origins, essential in painting because of its rich history, and commemorative purpose. Visited then revisited, the portrait genre is symptomatic of the aesthetic thought of an era and evolves during the various pictorial movements.

During the high peak of artistic creation, the Italian Renaissance. Many portraits focused on the desire to capture a person’s likeliness so he or she could seem present even in absence. But likeness and evident artistic mediation are not mutually exclusive. Stylized portraits like those by Bronzino were also praised for being lifelike. Indeed, portraiture without art, without the intercession of style and adherence to beauty ideals, has been viewed since antiquity as a lesser achievement. While Vasari lauded Anguissola for being able to both imitate and invent, Michelangelo’s artistic invention prevailed;  when critics recognized that Michelangelo’s sculptures of the Medici’s were not faithful to their models, the artist reportedly declared that in a century no one would remember that they looked any different.

Then, in a world dominated by digital images and the mass media, how does our psychology combine with the social functions of portraits? Perhaps because the portrait not only refers to the other but above all to ourselves. In its global use, the portrait reminds us of our own image and our personal issues intimately and realistically.

Through the portrait, the artists in this exhibition question our relationship to the body and to the notion of identity in a complex socio-cultural context that redefines the borders of art expression.

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