Weekend Read - Reconnecting with humanity through portraits this year
Relishing maskless faces less than 6 feet apart, in tons of exhibits in museums this year
I’ve seen so many exhibits in the past few months of people’s faces that are eerily alike, and it seems like it’s not a coincidence with the ongoing pandemic.
I find that when you see art often, you have a similar experience of seeing repeated themes.
Part of this might be you— you’re bringing yourself to each exhibit and unconsciously looking for the same themes in all of the art.
But another part might be that we’re thinking about the same things around the same time.
Face it 👀
We saw this show with portraits of detainees, drawn by a detainee, at the Norton Museum in Palm Beach, Florida a couple of months ago.
The portraits each told the story of the detainee, many about their life before, why they decided to flee, and how they were caught. The stories of desperation and of people who had tried their best to make a better life literally surrounded you.
Then a few weeks ago, we saw walls of portraits of prisoners drawn by another prisoner at MoMA PS1. They were done in just 20 minutes with whatever supplies the artist had.
These only told their stories through their faces. Many looked into the distance, some looking resigned, others looking stoic, and some even closing their eyes.
The portraits helped you question what you thought a prisoner should look like, and humanized people often relegated to the shadows of society. Through your interpretations of their emotions, you realized your perspective on crime.
They even gave a look into how the pandemic has affected prisons. The artist himself is in blue here.
I then saw Shirin Neshat’s group of portraits of people from New Mexico. She asked them about their dreams and inscribed them in Farsi on the portraits. Like the other collections of portraits, this one was also meant to show the diversity of people— this time in America.
Why are these all so similar? 🖼️
Especially with the pandemic forcing our realities to be so different from the norm, and also so oddly similar to each others’, I think similar ideas are on many people’s minds.
Many of us deeply miss seeing people through our regular routines of work or visits to coffeeshops, and perhaps these collections of portraits are a way to combat that.
Being able to stand closer than 6 feet to a detailed picture of someone’s raw truth is a way we can see each other’s faces and be able to express emotions again.
We can live other people’s realities for a moment while immersed in these portraits. This is deeply needed at this moment while we watch communities be unfairly ravaged by the virus and economic instability.
Every time we see art, we’re a different person. Hopefully the art changes us, but also we bring who we are, what we’re going through, and what we’re thinking about at that moment to what we see.
You can see the same things countless times and feel something different each time. There’s both art that I didn’t think much of and am now moved by, and art that has moved me in the past, and now just feels like a familiar friend and doesn’t have that visceral reaction.
The key is to just keep looking.
Send me any cool portraits you’ve seen this year and I’ll share them!