Description

CLOSE-UP

The exhibition shows works by women artists occupying prominent positions within the history of modern art from 1870 to the present day. It was at the beginning of this period that women artists in Europe and America were in a position to make their first significant incursions into the professional world of art. The exhibition centers around nine artists, united in their emphasis on the depiction of the human figure: on the portrait, in widely differing forms, and the self-portrait. The featured artists are Mary Cassatt, Marlene Dumas, Frida Kahlo, Lotte Laserstein, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Berthe Morisot, Alice Neel, Elizabeth Peyton, and Cindy Sherman.

The exhibition focusses on the artists’ gaze, on their personal vision of their surroundings that finds expression in the portraits of themselves and others. In a synoptic perspective, it becomes possible to experience how the artists’ view of their subject shifts between 1870 and the present day, and what makes it significant.