INTRO: The primacy of self-presentation as self-creation has become a hallmark of our social media age where selfies reign supreme. To be seen, literally and figuratively (“I see you”), is not only confirmation of one’s existence and value, but a necessary performance of self that must be staged again and again. Smartphone technology amplifies this endless loop of narcissism, cultivating an objectified, idealized, branded self that is now de rigueur. From pop stars to the pope, no one escapes the look-at-me pull of the selfie as they mug and preen behind the length of an arm for fans and followers.
Designed for public circulation rather than private consumption, the selfie can be distinguished from the art historical tradition of self-portraiture where searching the depths of one’s reflection was a reckoning above all with time and character. Yet its impact on contemporary photographers can be felt in the work of Whitney Hubbs, Tommy Kha, Ilona Szwarc, and Paul Sepuya, who negate, expose, and subvert its narcissistic gaze. Invoking the Greek superstition that it was unlucky or even fatal to see one’s own reflection, from which the myth of Narcissus arose, these artists above all employ evasion, surrogacy, and confusion to serve anything but face. Instead, identity is conjured as a slippery, troubling, mnemonic experience as unreliable as the photographic medium that would try and fasten it. Its flimsy construction is revealed for the viewer through mirrors, flash-wash, cut-outs, studio props, and interlocutors who question the very idea of a self-portrait.
https://nathaliekarg.com/exhibitions/25-mirror-mirror-whitney-hubbs-tommy-kha-paul-mpagi-sepuya-ilona/press_release_text/