February 09, 2018

This Is Not a Selfie Opens at ArtCenter

Williamson Gallery exhibition features photographs by Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman and Andy Warhol

This Is Not a Selfie: Photographic Self-Portraits from the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection, an exhibition organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) opens Friday, February 23, 2018 at ArtCenter College of Design’s Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery in Pasadena and continues through June 3, 2018.

The opening reception on Thursday, February 22 from 7 to 9 p.m. is free and open to the public. Photography and art lovers will enjoy refreshments and sound by musician/DJ Michael Miller. Free parking is available on the Hillside Campus at 1700 Lida Street in Pasadena.

Premiering at the San Jose Museum of Art in 2017, the touring exhibition comprises work by 65 photographers including Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe, Catherine Opie, Cindy Sherman, Alfred Stieglitz, Lorna Simpson, Andy Warhol and many others.

A concurrent exhibition, You Are The Show, features a selection of images by ArtCenter photography alumni and students.

Ranging from early 19th-century experiments through contemporary digital techniques, This Is Not a Selfie is accompanied by an illustrated catalog. The text features an essay by photography historian Deborah Irmas as guest curator and 50 extended written entries by Eve Schillo, LACMA assistant curator, and the curatorial team at the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at LACMA, along with a foreword by Dennis Keeley, chair of ArtCenter’s Photography and Imaging department.

“In their self-portraits, artists evoke not only who they are as people and what ideas they are exploring, but also who we are as a culture,” writes Irmas. “By presenting themselves, these artists allow us to look beyond them, to gain a deeper understanding of what it means for people to live in a complex world of images. With the selfie firmly in place, it is a particularly prescient moment to revisit the enduring pursuit of the photographic self.”

“This collection of self-portraits, or stories told about the self-concerning self, are specifically wonderful, and invite us to think more critically about our beings, our images, and who we are,” says Keeley in his foreword. “They remind us to consider the imaginative circumstances and conditions that create extraordinary ideas of the self, and the infinitely different ways of being."

This Is Not a Selfie also includes works by Berenice Abbott, Mehemed Fehmy Agha, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Herbert Bayer, Hans Bellmer, Wallace Berman, Joseph Beuys, Ilse Bing, Christian Boltanski, Jonathan Borofsky, Claude Cahun, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Anne Collier, Ellen Cowin, Judy Dater, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Simryn Gill, Nan Goldin, Douglas Gordon, Pedro Guerrero, Lyle Ashton Harris and Renee Cox, Florence Henri, Bettina Hoffmann, Peter Keetman, Martin Kersels, Yves Klein, O. Winston Link, El Lissitzky, T. Lux (Theodore Lukas), George Platt Lynes, Danny Lyon, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Pierre Molinier, Jennifer Moon, Yasumasa Morimura, Vik Muniz. Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon), Paulo Nazareth, Bruce Nauman, Warren Neidich, Helmut Newton, Leonard Nimoy, Luigi Ontani, ORLAN, Chino Otsuka, Hirsch Perlman, Amalia Pica, Alphonse-Louis Poitevin, Sigmar Polke, Ilene Segalove, Malick Sidibé, Anton Stankowski, Ralph Steiner, Seneca Ray Stoddard, Wolfgang Tillmans, and William Wegman.

This Is Not a Selfie: Photographic Self-Portraits from the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection is organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Williamson Gallery exhibitions are made possible by a grant from the Pasadena Art Alliance and the generosity of the Williamson Gallery Patrons.

ArtCenter College of Design’s Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery is located at 1700 Lida Street in Pasadena. For more information, contact williamson.gallery@artcenter.edu or, call 626 396-2397.

Williamson Gallery Hours:

12 to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday
12 to 9 p.m., Friday
Closed Mondays and holidays

Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery
ArtCenter College of Design
1700 Lida Street, Pasadena, CA 91103

Social Media:
@artcenteredu
#thisisnotaselfie

About the Alyce De Roulet Williamson Gallery: The Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery at ArtCenter has established a broad reputation for exploring the intersection of science and art. Through a two-decade series of programs and exhibitions, it has contributed to the emergence of an international movement among universities, journals, conferences, artistic studio practices, and design strategies that promotes an intensified collaboration between the humanities and sciences.

About ArtCenter: Founded in 1930 and located in Pasadena, California, ArtCenter College of Design is a global leader in art and design education. ArtCenter offers 11 undergraduate and seven graduate degrees in a wide variety of industrial design disciplines as well as visual and applied arts. In addition to its top-ranked academic programs, the College also serves members of the Greater Los Angeles region through a highly regarded series of year-round educational programs for all ages and levels of experience. Renowned for both its ties to industry and its social impact initiatives, ArtCenter is the first design school to receive the United Nations’ Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) status. Throughout the College’s long and storied history, ArtCenter alumni have had a profound impact on popular culture, the way we live and important issues in our society.

Contact:
Teri Bond
Media Relations Director
ArtCenter College of Design
teri.bond@artcenter.edu
O 626 396-2385

Cindy Sherman’s Untitled, Film Still #5, 1977, Gelatin-silver print, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection
Chino Otsuka’s 1976+2005, Kamakura, Japan, 2005, Dye coupler print, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift of the Irmas Family Foundation
Lisa Anne Auerbach’s Take this Knitting Machine and Shove It, 2009, Inkjet print, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection; Gift of Deborah Irmas
Anne Collier’s Mirror Ball, 2004, Dye coupler print, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection