2025-04-03
London's Saatchi Gallery is hosting its first selfie exhibition from 31 March to 30 May.
"I paint self-portraits because I am mostly alone because I am the person I know best". - these are the words of Frida Kahlo. The Oxford Dictionary defines a selfie as a photograph taken and at the same time depicting the person taking the photograph. This is usually done using a smartphone or a webcam and, in turn, publishing the photo on social media. Some trace the origins of the selfie to photographs from a century ago. In a photograph from 1913, the Russian tsar's daughter Anastasia photographed herself visible in a mirror image.
The selfie, however, has a longer genesis, as the exhibition From Selfie to Self-Expression, opening at the Saatchi Gallery on 31 March, seeks to explain. If the question posed in the title has troubled anyone, the answer is the selfie. Both Rembrandt and Kim Kardashian were keen to immortalize their likenesses. Rembrandt's painterly oeuvre includes more than just self-portraits, but there is no shortage of these in his legacy. This particular type of portraiture not only documents the painters' ageing process and creates a kind of autobiography, but is also a good material for research into changes in the way individual artists painted.
In the 17th century, only painters were able to make their own portraits, whereas today anyone with a smartphone can do so. The exhibition was created in collaboration with Huawei Mobile. Large screens appeared in the gallery space where using smartphones, it is possible to 'like' not only photos but also digitized works of art as happens every day on social media.
The exhibition features paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Diego Velazquez, photographs by Andy Warhol, George Harrison and many other popular selfies that have gone viral. Alongside photos taken by David Beckham, Leonardo Di Caprio, among others, Kim Kardashian was not to be missed. The star in 2015 released a special album entitled Selfish presenting her own collection of such photographs.
This is not the first time an art gallery has confronted the issue of the selfie, but it is the first to consider its artistic merits. When London's National Gallery allowed visitors to take a selfie three years ago, industry insiders voiced their opposition to this kind of interaction with works of art, devoid of any contemplation. Just three years separate us from considering whether to allow tourists to take a selfie in a gallery space until it is elevated to the status of a work of art.
Executive Director Nigel Hurst explains the reasons for posting selfies online as follows: "It's not about sharing a selfie, it's really about sharing a version of our identity that we would like people to believe in. The idea for the exhibition came about a year and a half ago. The gallery or the author of the exhibition has so far not faced any negative feedback, although there are still some who question the selfie as a type of artwork. Hurst talks about the fact that "[...]anything can become a work of art if people accept and believe it to be art", which as we know has happened more than once in the history of art history. Furthermore, Hurst poses the question "How will a past generation of people represent themselves?".
The exhibition did not lack polish accents. Krzysztof Wodiczko, in collaboration with Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, created an installation consisting of 12 CCTV cameras, which, thanks to special technology, allow visitors' images to be projected on the walls in real-time while taking a selfie. The authors' aim was to draw attention to the negative effects of living in a world driven and created by the selfie.
For centuries, art has been subjecting itself to the present and posing new questions to it. Is the selfie already a work of art? Perhaps the fact that this type of photography has entered the gallery space gives us an answer. The first selfie exhibition is on view until 30 May at London's Saatchi Gallery.