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Miráme: 21st Century Self-Portraits for Latino/a America

Presented by La Raza Galeria Posada at La Raza Galeria Posada

May 20-July 2, 2011

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Selfless? Selfish? You looking at me?? If you’ve ever even once compared the number of “friends” you have on your Facebook page, looked at the photos (never mind the names), whipped out your iPhone to take 17 shots at the bar, the concert, the store, the sidewalk, the bathroom, let alone talked to your screen at night for your YouTube Channel, this bud's for you.

Miráme: 21st Century Self-Portraits for Latino/a America is a collection of various self-portraits, profile pics, and other representations of  “self.” “Selfish or selfless?” wonders curator Ella Diaz. “In the 21st century, portraits are everywhere, and they are as meaningful or as meaningless as the time it takes to create them.” Driven by the vast social media networks that occupy a new generation, this is high concept in low brow art form—complete with a karaoke machine on site set to Billy Idol’s “Dancing with Myself.”

The modern launch point for this focus on the self portrait, according to Diaz, lies with the revolutionary portraiture artist, Frida Kahlo. “Imagine it,” Diaz suggests, “a woman artist brazen enough to paint herself and from a subject position that looks her viewers right in the eye and boldly asks, “So what are you looking at?”

So, as fun as Miráme: 21st Century Self-Portraits for Latino/a America is intended to be, its historical antecedent is clear. “In the late twentieth century, Latino/a, Chicano/a, and Native American artists re-staged the self portrait,” Diaz writes. “They poked fun at its implications and the troubling stereotypes of savage warriors, mythic mulattas, and exotic native guides, all of which abound in the genre and the western imagination---the self-portrait has been thoroughly dismantled, revised, and re-hung on the wall of the master’s house. Meticulously staging oneself in a bathroom mirror; striking a pose with drunk friends at a bar; earnestly attempting irony through shadows, silhouettes, or a favorite pet; each of these is an accidental allegory for a larger social malaise and alienation in the virtual photo albums that we carefully create in our online shrines to self.”

Exhibiting artists are: Rio Yañez, Kelly Donahey, Francisco Gomez, Karissa McHurd , Erick Andino, Flaco Seagulls , Rye Purvis , Erika Romero, and Deborah Roberts.

Special events for the exhibition:
Fri, May 20, 7pm: Opening reception with artists & curator Ella Diaz
Fri, May 27 & Thurs, June 9, 7pm: Additional walk throughs in the gallery with curator Ella Diaz