Our Selfie: How much can (self)portrait tell about us?

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How much can (self)portrait tell about us?

MO Museum presents an exhibition Our Selfie which, for the first time, consists of two private collections. Its curator Francesca Ferrarini also attended the opening of the exhibition organised by MO Museum together with the Lewben Art Foundation. During the presentation, the curator shared insights on how much a selfie or a (self)portrait can tell us.

“The artists and their works are bound by an extremely close relationship. Nowadays, when everything dissolves in a sea of selfies and a fake lifestream on Instagram, the artists featured in the exhibition try to avoid artificiality and bring back the value to the portrait as the mirror of the soul,” Ferrarini said in her presentation.

Invitation to look at oneself

“At MO Museum exhibitions we invite the viewer to an open conversation, even a kind of confrontation. In this exhibition, a portrait becomes a broader concept as society is the one being portrayed. Today, our everyday life in unthinkable without selfies and the artists of the exhibition see their power to tell much more. As a result, visitors can not only embark on a visual adventure but also discover the stories behind every piece or portrait. From September, the exhibition will be supplemented by the work of Šarūnas Sauka Millennium – Portrait of Lithuanian Society”,” says Milda Ivanauskienė, Director at MO Museum.

Personal experiences and stories of artists themselves are very important factors for all the works on display at the exhibition. These include the every day life in the slums where two artists featured in the exhibition had lived, the motifs of nationality and ethnicity and their affect on foreign artists and the everyday life experiences of women in Africa as well as the dialogue between women from the perspectiv of  Lithuanian artist V. Bubelytė. Artists do not seek to be aesthetically pleasing, for example, the exhibition displays a purposefully “anti-aesthetic” photo by Paul Nazareth designed to avoid any beautification. In it, the artist adopts a posture as if he was about to do any kind of work for money.

Emerging talents

The exhibition features creators who have held a number of solo exhibitions in various museums throughout the world. They are all currently actively engaged in creative work. Among the exhibition artists, there are also emerging talents who are confidently making their way into the world of contemporary art, such as Paulo Nazareth, Tschabalala Self, Maxwell Alexandre or Nico Vascellari. The works of all of these artists are part of the Lewben Art Foundation’s collection, exhibited in Lithuania for the first time.

One of the works at the exhibition, an installation by Maxwell Alexandre – the latest addition to the Lewben Art Foundation – arrived just last week from the Basel Art Fair. The installation features a portrait encompassing the confrontation, the inside struggles and the hard life at favela, and suggests never to trust the first impression. Alexandre’s installation depicts a long-standing confrontation between a policeman and a child. It is difficult to say why one is threatened by the other, and visitors standing in front of the piece may have time to ask and perhaps even imagine themselves in a similar situation.

The exhibition also features a piece by Nico Vascellari, who has exhibited his works in the world’s most famous museums and galleries. The artist, who considers himself as an art rebel, in his work exhibited at MO, aims to reveal the wildest, deepest-lying identity and scream out to the world that we are humans and animals. Visitors of Our Selfie exhibition will see his installation “Dream Merda” – an anagram that conveys the message to the world: “In dark times, it is important to dream but only with eyes wide open.”

Special exhibition architecture

Lewben Art Foundation chooses to highlight not only the works but also the space in which they are exhibited. Therefore, in cooperation with MO Museum, once more the museum spaces are being changed completely. The architecture of the exhibition, designed by IMPLMNT Architects, draws attention and catches the eye.

“The exhibition architects IMPLMNT Architects offered to put up the new floor for MO Museum’s Small Hall that reflects both the exhibited artworks and us – the visitors of the exhibition. It became an effect that reinforced the idea of the exhibition – to reflect portraits of us and the entire society,” says Ugnė Bužinskaitė, Director at the Lewben Art Foundation.

Stereotypes denied or challenged?

Just as the title of the exhibition – Our Selfie – the exhibited works challenge what we consider to be common. What is a selfie, what can it be and what does it say about us? What are the stereotypes that surround us and can we accept them?

Patrizio di Massimo does not avoid hot political topics or provocative images in his works. The artist allows viewers themselves to extend the story captured in the works and reflect on the circumstances that led to the tense situations depicted in the pictures. In the work exhibited at the exhibition – “Wedding” – the artist and his wife are wearing armour on their wedding day. Maybe it is the perfect outfit for a wedding that means you need to get ready for a fight?

Another artist at the exhibition, Tschabalala Self, explores the black female body in contemporary culture. However, speaking of stereotypes, she says she does not know whether it is productive to try combating them. “Stereotypes simply exist. I do not know if it is possible to overcome them – they are part of our reality. Stereotypes can even be useful, despite the fact that they are generally idiotic because they determine people’s perceptions,” she says.

The new exhibition at MO Museum will run until 17 November and will feature works by foreign artists Maxwell Alexandre, Tschabalala Self, Damir Ocko, Nico Vascellari, Patrizio di Massimo, Paulo Nazareth, Neil Belouf, Buhlebezwe Siwani, Simon Denny, Thomas Houseag from the Lewben Art Foundation as well as works by Lithuanian artists Eglė Budvytytė, Violeta Bubelytė and Gintaras Znamierowski from the MO Museum collection.

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