Look at Me! Portraits and Other Fictions in the "la Caixa" Collection of Contemporary Art

When we meet someone, the first thing we look at is their face in search of the signs that distinguish it. We follow their gaze, their gestures, and we pay attention to each of their expressions. We do the same when we look at a portrait, whether in painting, photography, sculpture or film, even though we know it is a representation, an image composed by someone with a specific intention.

Traditionally, the portrait has been a means to create the image of a character and distinguish it from the rest of society. Fidelity and resemblance to the subject portrayed have been essential conditions, although the ultimate goal has always been to reflect their identity. And this is where art poses questions to us: painting, photographing, drawing... is not reproducing or revealing a "self" but creating an image. Nowadays we all portray ourselves continuously but, as Roland Barthes said, when we look at the lens of a camera we act as if we were "another." Popularly we say that the camera does not lie, but we all know that in the portrait there is something of fiction, that in reality it is a re-presentation.

The portrait has reached our days by expanding its definition. With new concepts, techniques and languages, the most recent art deploys multiple possibilities for producing images of the human condition and exploring the complex notion of identity, as well as the social implications that it entails. The works exhibited come from the "la Caixa" Collection of Contemporary Art and gathered here they return our gaze to us as a social mirror in which we ask ourselves those eternally human questions: who are they? how do I see them? who am I? how do they see me?.