Gillian Wearing
GILLIAN WEARING, Self-Portrait at 17 Years Old, 2003,
Chromogenic color print, 41 x 32″ (104.1 x 81.3 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the generosity of The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art
Courtesy of the artist, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, and Maureen Paley, London © 2010 GILLIAN WEARING
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Fascinated by how people present themselves in front of the camera in fly-on-the-wall documentaries and reality TV, the 1997 Turner Prize-winning British artist GILLIAN WEARING explores – by masking her subjects or using theatre’s staging techniques – the delicate border zone where her individuality ends and another’s begins.
Self Portrait at 17 Years Old comes from a series of so-called self-portraits, in which WEARING transform herself into each member
of her family: her father Brian, her grandmother Nancy Gregory, her brother Richard, and her own teenage self (picture above). It’s only WEARING‘s eyes, peeking through each mask, that unite this peculiar family album and provoke a marked degree of discomfort in the viewer.
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