Maria Lassnig, Lady with Brain (1990), via Art Observed

The work of Maria Lassnig is deceptive in its simplicity.  Bright, seasick colors and sloping, often pathos-inspiring, self-portraits seem to fade in and out of focus, occasionally giving away to the staunch white of the surrounding canvas.  In others, the artist blends cool tones and and an even smoother application to create pieces almost completely vacant in their emotional intensity.  But in each work, a powerful subtext can be detected, a self-awareness both vocally present and consistently self-aware in its definition and re-defining of itself.  (more…)

Alex Israel, Self-Portrait (2013), via Peres Projects

Los Angeles-based Alex Israel makes work that seems constantly engaged with his home city, the Californian metropolis that plays home to so many of image-driven outlets of the culture industry.  Borrowing from the high-gloss, high production-value world of the Hollywood studio systems and culture corporations, Israel’s works explore the trappings and conventions of celebrity, perception and fame in the context of a city so actively engaged in the manipulation of each.

Alex Israel, Self-Portraits (Installation View), via Peres Projects (more…)

Robert Mapplethorpe, Self Portrait (1983), courtesy Skarstedt Gallery

Playing with constructed images of self and cultural phenomena, Robert Mapplethorpe’s challenging self-portraits were an influential and essential part of the 1970’s New York arts scene.  Now, the artist’s work in the medium is documented through eleven photographs at Skarstedt Gallery currently on view through June 15th. The photographs are extremely personal explorations that the artist took of himself periodically throughout his life, meant to explore different aspects of his own identity, as he captures himself in a variety of states and moods.

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California-based artist Alex Israel recently sat down with AnOther Magazine to talk about his new show in Berlin, his new series of self-portraits (one of which is on view as part of After-Hours 2:: Murals on the Bowery), and the close ties between his work and the film culture of his home city, Los Angeles.  “For me, going to the studio is a phrase that can only refer to going to a movie studio. That is why I made my work at Warner Bros. I am also a fan. I like movies and TV.” (more…)

A self-portrait by the late Jean-Michel Basquiat is expected to fetch $20 million in the June 27 Christie’s International sale of postwar and contemporary art in London. “The vivid acrylic, oilstick and spray-paint canvas will be offered after another untitled 1981 work sold for an artist-record $16.3 million at Phillips de Pury & Co. in New York, on May 10.”

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