Visages

Almine Rech New York, Upper East Side is pleased to present Visages, a group show on view from November 7 to December 14, 2024.

Artist to be featured: Georg Baselitz, Miriam Cahn, George Condo, Günther Förg, Françoise Gilot, Elaine de Kooning, Marie Laurencin, Markus Lüpertz, Pablo Picasso, Richard Prince, Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann, Matthias Bitzer, Brian Calvin, Ali Cherri, Genieve Figgis, Alex Israel, José Lerma, Inès Longevial, Ryan Schneider, Claire Tabouret, Jess Valice, Francesco Vezzoli, Amanda Wall, Chloe Wise, & Ji Xin.

Why faces now? Well, because faces always and forever, as long as each of us has one and animal life manages to persist. But there are other reasons, too. Just last year the surgeon general diagnosed an epidemic in this country of loneliness, isolation, and disconnection doing serious damage to individual and societal health. Faces and our relationship to them are increasingly undergoing a strange sea change, a transformational trip through the uncanny valley of AI, deep fakes, virtual reality, digital filters, hormone therapies, and the latest in cosmetic procedures. Gender and appearance have never been so fluid, performative, or androgynous.

Technology has never been as life-like nor as thoroughly enmeshed in our lives. And, because our present moment is submerged in an identity politics, verging on tribalism, that too often reduces identity to physiognomy and race, now is also a good time to think more expansively about the convergence of faces and being multifaceted, visages and vision vis-à-vis one’s outlook on the world. Perhaps a show about portraiture and the human face now is also asking, why even face the now when it too often appears hostile, brutal, destructive, and irrational? Is it possible? Or, how can we face the times in which we find ourselves? Can we face it by representing some of its many faces? […]