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Self-Portraits

05 Apr, 2024 - 04 May, 2024

GRIMM is pleased to announce Self-Portraits, a group exhibition taking place in parallel across our galleries in Amsterdam and New York. The exhibition will draw together a group of 22 international artists with the provocation to create a self-portrait in the classical sense: a window into the soul of the maker for the viewer to experience.

Featuring artists from across GRIMM’s network and beyond, Self-Portraits presents a challenge to this selection of acclaimed contemporary artists to apply their distinctive style to the framework of self-portraiture. The resulting work enacts a shared moment of recognition between artist and viewer, reflecting the spectrum of emotion from introspective to joyful encounters throughout the exhibition.

The self-portraits presented across GRIMM’s New York and Amsterdam spaces are direct, lively, intimate, and authentic, true to our contemporary confessional age. Taking a classical, painterly approach, as opposed to the ‘anything goes' trend from the 1980s to the 2000s, when performance, video, and photography dominated the genre, and where the self-portrait seemed to focus on sound, the body (or part thereof), or a comment on a general metaphysical state, the works included here are the result of painters looking directly at themselves and depicting what they see. For some artists, the exhibition marks their first self-portrait; Matthias Weischer and Alex Dordoy among them. Others, such as Philip Akkerman, have made a career out of limiting their practice to only painting self-portraits. 

The exhibition aims to capture a ‘state of being’ at this specific moment in time for each artist. In the era of the ‘selfie’, taken on a daily basis by millions to present a veneer of success, experience, beauty, or aspiration - the true sense of ’self’ can be overlooked or masked. The self-portrait offers the potential to reflect not only the surface but also the psychological interior of the artist, adapting to each artist’s distinctive voice. A group exhibition about self-portraiture in 2024, featuring young and mid-career artists engaging with this centuries-old practice of self-reflection and contemplation seems apt, provocative, and challenging. 



GRIMM is pleased to announce Self-Portraits, a group exhibition taking place in parallel across our galleries in Amsterdam and New York. The exhibition will draw together a group of 22 international artists with the provocation to create a self-portrait in the classical sense: a window into the soul of the maker for the viewer to experience.

Featuring artists from across GRIMM’s network and beyond, Self-Portraits presents a challenge to this selection of acclaimed contemporary artists to apply their distinctive style to the framework of self-portraiture. The resulting work enacts a shared moment of recognition between artist and viewer, reflecting the spectrum of emotion from introspective to joyful encounters throughout the exhibition.

The self-portraits presented across GRIMM’s New York and Amsterdam spaces are direct, lively, intimate, and authentic, true to our contemporary confessional age. Taking a classical, painterly approach, as opposed to the ‘anything goes' trend from the 1980s to the 2000s, when performance, video, and photography dominated the genre, and where the self-portrait seemed to focus on sound, the body (or part thereof), or a comment on a general metaphysical state, the works included here are the result of painters looking directly at themselves and depicting what they see. For some artists, the exhibition marks their first self-portrait; Matthias Weischer and Alex Dordoy among them. Others, such as Philip Akkerman, have made a career out of limiting their practice to only painting self-portraits. 

The exhibition aims to capture a ‘state of being’ at this specific moment in time for each artist. In the era of the ‘selfie’, taken on a daily basis by millions to present a veneer of success, experience, beauty, or aspiration - the true sense of ’self’ can be overlooked or masked. The self-portrait offers the potential to reflect not only the surface but also the psychological interior of the artist, adapting to each artist’s distinctive voice. A group exhibition about self-portraiture in 2024, featuring young and mid-career artists engaging with this centuries-old practice of self-reflection and contemplation seems apt, provocative, and challenging. 



Contact details

54 White Street Tribeca - New York, NY, USA 10013

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