“I have it in me to record,” he noted.
“So I am constantly creating more, seemingly endless new works out of myself….
I am so rich that I must give myself away.”
Courtesy of subject
Isn’t it selfish not to share?
There was Rembrandt, Frida Kahlo, Walker Evans, Cindy Sherman, Carrie Mae Weems.
As our images became pixels, technology let us capture our faces instantly, easily, and infinitely.
Courtesy of subject
There wasRihannaand Emily Ratajkowski.
We now have the ability and predilection to take 20 photos of ourselves in a casual minute.
This admission has come about slowly and contentiously.
We all learned to lower our chins slightly.
Out of this cultural tempest, we found peace.
Self-portraiture became omnipresent and therefore rather ordinary and not really capable of riling us up with controversies.
It’s become the water in which we swim, the air we breathe, a way of communicating.
My selfies of late have been heavy on the evidence-gathering bang out.
Look how grumpy I can make my scowl lines!
Look how content and adored your birthday card made me feel!
This is not an art history textbook but welcome to “Intro to 21st-Century Self-Portraiture.”
Here is your syllabus.
The advent of Adobe Photoshop ushers in a new frontier for image manipulation.
The first commercial camera phone in North America arrives in 2002: a Japanese Sanyo model serviced by Sprint.
The New Yorker, 2013
We’re getting the hang of this!
We’re learning our angles!
Were contouring (RuPaul’s Drag Racepremieres in 2009) orkontouring and we think we look pretty good.
(We will eventually look back in horror.)
one taken with a smartphone orwebcamand shared via social media.
(Originally Australian)."
Get used to the tablescapes."
Advertising enters social media like a drop of food coloring enters a glass of water.
The social media director is established as a new corporate archetype.
Rampant environmental disaster, a pandemic, widespread economic disparity, the persistent rise of fascism.
Before long, the social justice moment subsumes the selfie.
Women post selfies in vague support of female empowerment and ask their peers to do the same.
“Challenge accepted,” they write.
Elsewhere on social media, users continue to post selfies with varying levels of self-awareness.
The widespread adoption of FaceTune, established in 2013, contributes to the resurgence of an airbrushed filter.
And back round we go.
