Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • AMMpro
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

Selfie Discovery, Critic Tackles a New Genre

January 27, 2014 by Marion Maneker

Most famous Selfie of 2013

Jerry Saltz has some thoughts about the Selfie:

Selfies come from all of us; they are a folk art that is already expanding the language and lexicon of photography. Selfies are a photography of modern life—not that academics or curators are paying much attention to them. They will, though: In a hundred years, the mass of selfies will be an incredible record of the fine details of everyday life. Imagine what we could see if we had millions of these from the streets of imperial Rome. […]

Although theorists like Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes saw melancholy and signs of death in every photograph, selfies aren’t for the ages. They’re like the cartoon dog who, when asked what time it is, always says, “Now! Now! Now!”

We might ask what art-historical and visual DNA form the selfie’s roots and structures. There are old photos of people holding cameras out to take their own pictures. (Often, people did this to knock off the last frame in a roll of film, so it could be rewound and sent to be processed.) Still, the genre remained unclear, nebulous, and uncodified. Looking back for trace elements, I discern strong selfie echoes in Van Gogh’s amazing self-portraits [4]—some of the same intensity, immediacy, and need to reveal something inner to the outside world in the most vivid way possible. Warhol, of course, comes to mind with his love of the present, performative persona and his wild Day-Glo color. But he took his own instant photos of other subjects, or had his subjects shoot themselves in a photo booth—both devices with far more objective lenses than a smartphone, as well as different formats and depths of field. Many will point to Cindy Sherman. But none of her pictures is taken in any selfie way. Moreover, her photographs show us the characters and selves that exist in her unbridled pictorial imagination. She’s not there.

Art at Arm’s Length: A History of the Selfie (Vulture/NYMag)

More from Art Market Monitor

  • Prendergast in ItalyPrendergast in Italy
  • The Vulcan of Contemporary ArtThe Vulcan of Contemporary Art
  • Vernissage TV: Frieze 2011Vernissage TV: Frieze 2011
  • Dallas Art Fair Opens First Online Segment with Dealers Missing Pre-Pandemic DaysDallas Art Fair Opens First Online Segment with Dealers Missing Pre-Pandemic Days
  • Sourcing the MarketSourcing the Market
  • The Science of the CircleThe Science of the Circle

Filed Under: Critics

About Marion Maneker

Want to get Art Market Monitor‘s posts sent to you in our email? Sign up below by clicking on the Subscribe button.

Top Posts

  • Rare Photo Album by Dutch Street Photographer Bought at Auction by Rijksmuseum
  • Keith Haring’s 1989 Retrospect Comes to Sotheby’s London Prints Sale
  • Norman Rockwell's Not Gay. But Is He a Great Artist?
  • The Brandeis-Madoff Connection
  • Four of Picasso's Women Valued at $28m Come to Christie's from Rose-Walters Collection
  • David Hockney's $20m Pacific Coast Highway & Santa Monica
  • Christie's Announces $70m Picasso Self Portrait
  • Tony Podesta's Secret Art Buying
  • Roy Lichtenstein’s Top Ten Auction Prices
  • Phillips Includes $2.5m Norman Rockwell Painting in November Evening Sale
  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
California Privacy Rights
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Advertise on Art Market Monitor