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Eye Pop: The Celebrity Gaze
Today, in a society consumed with image-making, millions use social media to craft representations of themselves. We are saturated with the visual: faces surround us 24/7.
Meanwhile, the subjects of this exhibition -- celebrities, achievers, or both -- are fully aware that a large number of people will see and judge them, and they respond accordingly, with a "gaze" -- an attitude -- of their own. They are aware that fame is fleeting, public attention is fickle, and the eye is always on the next big thing. How do we, the viewers, separate the "one-hit wonder" from the person with staying power?
And then you factor in the artist. Portrait-making by definition involves the relationship between the artist (who gazes at the sitter), the sitter (who gazes first at the artist and then, by extension, the viewer), and the viewer (who gazes at the sitter).
Subject, artist, and viewer: each person brings something to the process of creating these portraits. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor appears smiling yet steely. Designer Marc Jacobs confronts the viewer as a cheeky bad boy.
"Eye Pop" examines twenty-first-century celebrity and achievement in this context of portrait-making. Celebrity evolved during the modern age, when visual media such as popular magazines, newspapers, and film began to reproduce the images of the famous and make -- or break -- a career. The concept of achievement is a traditional American idea, but how do we measure it today, when everything is reduced to online popularity?
From surfers to scientists, athletes to actors, "Eye Pop" uses the National Portrait Gallery's recent acquisitions to survey the landscape of American culture. Who will be in the limelight five years from now? |