Before You Now: Capturing the Self in Portraiture

Before You Now: Capturing the Self in Portraiture focuses on the enduring theme of the artist’s self-portrait as seen in a selection of works from LACMA’s collections of photographs prints drawings videos and installation art. Primarily featuring contemporary makers the exhibition is an introduction to seeing American artists as they see themselves—or as they want to be seen by their public.

They are shown contemplating their physicality in realistic fashion highlighting their persona through symbolic tropes or utilizing humor or conceptual methods to enlighten exaggerate or camouflage their reflective selves. Over 50 artists—including Laura Aguilar Kwame Brathwaite Kalli Arte Collective Roger Shimomura Cindy Sherman Rodrigo Valenzuela and June Wayne—display an ongoing fascination with or return to the self-portrait. Before You Now aims to broaden the topic to include many whose practice leans into an autobiographical narrative and explores artists who are adding to and redefining our culture by expanding on ideas of identity.

This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in collaboration with the Riverside Art Museum; California State University Northridge Art Galleries; Lancaster Museum of Art and History; and Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College.

Local Access is a series of American art exhibitions created through a multi-year multi-institutional partnership formed by LACMA as part of the Art Bridges Cohort Program.

Image credit: Jessica Wimbley, Cabinet Portrait: Wife Portrait, 2022, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by LENS: Photography Council, 2022, © Jessica Wimbley, digital image courtesy/LACMA

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