ART-PRESENTATION: ISelf Collection, Self-Portrait as the Billy Goat
Maria Sukkar’s Collection, named ISELF, looks at identity with particular reference to the human condition. It explores the central themes of birth, death, sexuality, love, pain and joy. Much of the collection examines human nature and emotion, and most of the artists represented are women. The collection is very figurative with portraits and sculptures ranging from caricatures to traumatized figures and erotic imagery.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Whitechapel Gallery Archive
The exhibition “ISelf Collection: Self-Portrait as the Billy Goat”, is the first of the four exhibitions with works from the ISelf Collection and continues the Whitechapel Gallery’s programme of opening up rarely seen collections from around the world. The ISelf Collection was established in 2009 by Maria and Malek Sukkar, many of the works of the Collection examine the existential dilemma that is inherent to human nature. Figuration plays a major part, and a majority of the artists represented are women. Maria Sukkar said in an interview about the Collection: “The collection has Existentialism at its core. It looks at the identity of human beings particularly in reference to the human condition. In other words, it encompasses all the themes that shape our life: love, death, birth, angst, sickness, agony, etc…. There are two distinct sides to it, the poetic side and the very raw and brutal side…”. On presentation are 25 works from: Pawel Althamer, Louise Bourgeois, André Breton and the Surrealists, Enrico David, Tracey Emin, Gilbert & George, Gabriel Kuri, Yayoi Kusama, Linder, Aditya Mandayam, Raqs Media Collective, Prem Sahib and Cindy Sherman , that reveal how these artists stage their own bodies or self-reflections to examine the different ways that we build our sense of personal identity. The exhibition title is taken from Pawel Althamer’s “Self-Portrait as the Billy Goat” (2011) that features a human-sized billy goat, made from ceramic, metal, plastic and fur, sitting on a block of white Styrofoam in the pose of Rodin’s Thinker and apparently musing on life, or the portraits surrounding him. This figure is inspired from Koziołek Matołek, a Polish cartoon character from the ‘30s and his quest to find Pacanów, a town where it is rumored they are making shoes for goats. By staging their own portraits the artists examine the mechanisms that we use to present ourselves to the world. In her “Untitled” (1977/2010) photographs, Cindy Sherman stages her appearance through a curtain call where she poses as four different actors. The agency of the artist in the set-up of the image also comes to the fore in Linder’s disturbing portrait “You search but do not see” (1981-2010) where she appears to be almost suffocating in a plastic bag. Louise Bourgeois presents herself as mother in “Untitled” (2005) and influenced Tracey Emin (b.1963, UK), whose intimate nude gouaches “Im here” (2014) and “Fist Clasped” (2014) are also on display. This exhibition aims to reveal how artists convey the complex dynamics below the surface of their appearances. Yayoi Kusama’s “Infinity Nets YSOR” (2011) from an ongoing series of delicate, abstract white paintings explores the landscape of her mind. On show alongside this is Prem Sahib’s “Undetectable” (2013), a minimal sculpture which we later understand to be an AIDS test. Future Iself Collection exhibitions include: “ISelf Collection: The End of Love”, “ISelf Collection: Structures of Chance” and “ISelf Collection: Bumped Bodies”.
Info: Emily Butler and Candy Stobbs, Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High St, London, Duration: 27/4-20/8/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sun 11:00-18:00, Thu 11:00-21:00, www.whitechapelgallery.org
