- Introduction

- Overview: From Selfie to Self-Expression

- Exhibition floorplan

- Selfie facts

- Room by room guide

- Talking points

- Practical activities

Introduction...

The Saatchi Gallery is a contemporary art gallery – artworks

displayed are generally made by artists living and working

today.

These artworks are at the cutting edge of contemporary art.

Many of the exhibited artists have never previously shown

in the UK. They may be unknown when first exhibited, not

only to the general public but also to the commercial art

world.

These artists are subsequently offered shows by galleries

and museums internationally. In this effect, the gallery

operates as a springboard for young artists to launch their

careers.

The Gallery presents 3-4 new exhibitions per year.

Overview: From Selfie to Self-Expression

• The exhibition aims to inspire debate around the cultural position of the selfie and its place in our contemporary visual landscape

i.e. - can selfies be considered art?

• It celebrates the creative potential of the selfie. In the 16th century, it was only artists who had the tools to create self-portraits,

whereas technological advances mean that all equipped audiences can now express themselves.

• The exhibition will link this new digital medium for self-expression to more traditional and contemporary artworks.

• It explores the democratisation of photography: with the invention of instant cameras in the 1950’s, the practice of photography

entered people’s daily lives. Taking photos became a way of documenting everyday life experiences. When smartphones were

introduced to the public this practice became even more popular. The front-facing feature of smartphone cameras have made the

practice of taking selfies incredibly common.

• Selfies are often derided as an inane form of expression yet they can convey a mood, create a scene or tell a story, and are

often consciously staged in terms of composition, colour, lighting and backdrop.

• The camera roll of a teenager trying out different various poses can by no means be compared to the skill and rigor of, for

example, Van Gogh’s Self Portrait (1889) but the art world cannot ignore the selfie phenomenon.

• For celebrities, selfies have become a way to interact directly with their fans. Selfies can be used as a marketing tool and are a

way for celebrities to have more control over their own publicity. We are given the impression that we have access to their private

lives, yet this is a filtered, manipulated and directed insight, and far less invasive than the paparazzi.

GROUND FLOOR

G1: The self-portrait through art history – The Old Masters

G2: Self-portraits and selfies in Modern Art

G3: Hello World – a digital installation by Christopher Baker

G4: Iconic celebrity selfies of our time

G5: Selfies from the beautiful and sublime to the mad, bad

and dangerous

FIRST FLOOR

G6: The selfie through the gaze of contemporary artists

G7: Interactive artworks and #saatchiselfie competition

G8: Self-expression – Commissioned artworks by Young

British Photographers

G10: Zoom Pavilion - a digital installation by Rafael Lozano

Hemmer

Selfie facts

Over 1 million

selfies are now

taken every day

In 2013 ‘selfie’

was

announced the

word of the

year by the

Oxford English

Dictionary

The government in India has

introduced ‘no selfie zones’ in order

to limit the number of accidents

involving people taking selfies

There were more deaths relating to selfies in

2015 than there were shark attack deaths

Makati City in the Philippines is the

'Selfie Capital of the World’, followed

closely by New York and Miami

The average age of

selfie takers is 23.6

years old

The earliest usage of the word

has been traced back to 2002,

when it first appeared in an

Australian online forumThe earliest known photographic

self-portrait was taken by Robert

Cornelius in 1839

• Gallery 1 presents artworks by Old & Modern Masters, displayed digitally on screens. Artists

include Vincent Van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Egon Schiele, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Diego

Velasquez and Rembrandt van Rijn.

• Artwork labels in this room are interactive smartphones which visitors can use to ‘like’ the

artworks, as you would on Instagram ♥

• Self-portraiture is one of the oldest traditions for artists. Artists used self-portraits as a way of

expressing themselves, or to keep in practice between commissions.

• Each self-portrait was stamped with their individual style but the practice also allowed them to be

more experimental because they were generally not painted as commissions. This allowed for

self-investigation.

• The idea of being remembered beyond the their time was one reason for artists to paint a self-

portrait. They would also use self-portraiture to assert their position in court, as a form of self-

advertisement.

• In a self-portrait the artist is his or her own flexible and free model; always available and ready to

take on whatever persona.

• The self-portrait records physical appearance and some artists examine how they age by

repeatedly recording themselves. Rembrandt’s self-portraits are an excellent example of this .

• Some artists used self-portraiture as a way of exploring their emotions. In Self-Portrait with

Bandaged Ear, Van Gogh seems to be portraying his acceptance of mental illness.

Gallery 1 – A digital masterclass

in selfies

From top left: Self-Portrait, Pablo Picasso, 1907; Self-Portrait, Frida Kahlo, 1941; Self-

Portrait with Bent Head, Egon Schiele, 1912; Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, Vincent

Van Gogh, 1889

Gallery 1 artwork in focus: Las MeninasDiego Velasquez

1656

Oil on canvas, 318 x 276 cm

• Diego Velasquez was the official painter of King Philip IV of Spain. He mainly painted portraits of the

Spanish Royal Family and of important European people of his time.

• Las Meninas is a portrait of Princess Margaret Theresa of Spain with her court: young ladies, servants

and dwarfs. The meninas were the young ladies in the Princess’s court.

• The complex composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and creates an uncertain

relationship between the viewer and the figures depicted. It is one of the most widely analysed

artworks in Western painting.

• Apart from the menina on the left, all of the characters are looking in the same direction, outside of the

picture towards an unknown viewer. In the centre of the composition stands a mirror reflecting the royal

couple. Could they be the mysterious viewers that the group is looking at? Is this who Velasquez is

painting?

• On the left side of the picture, the artist has represented himself painting on a canvas, thus this is a

self-portrait of a painter doing his job.

• What is Velasquez trying to express about himself in this artwork? By placing himself between the

Princess of Spain and the Royal Couple, Velasquez is asserting his privileged position in the court.

• It has been suggested that the painting captures a precise moment, just as an instant photograph

would do: the Princess is turning her head, the painter lifts his brush, the dwarf is kicking the dog, one

of the meninas bows - the group has been caught in action.

• Certain questions have never been resolved: What is Velasquez painting? Where was he standing to

paint the scene?

• This self-portrait is a way for Velasquez to enter history and be remembered for eternity. Diego Velasquez, Las Meninas, 1656, oil on canvas

Gallery 2 – Modern Masters of Self-Portraiture

• Gallery 2 explores self-portraits and selfies in modern art, featuring a combination of real

and digitally displayed work by Tracey Emin, Cindy Sherman, Chuck Close, Lucian Feud,

Idris Khan, Gunter Brus and Andy Warhol

• By the turn of the 20th century, photographs had become the most accessible and popular

mode of self-portraiture for artists

• Some painters, as though freed from the burden of realism, began to explore new ways to

represent themselves, breaking with the literal and representational portraits of the

previous era

• By using their own body, artists were provided with a model that was always available -

live models can prove expensive for emerging artists. That is not to say that artists

working with self-portraiture are doing so out of lack of choice - many of the artists here

actively choose to provide an intimate and autobiographical account of their lives through

art.

• Tracey Emin’s work can be described as confessional, and at times has been criticized

for being self-centred and egotistical. However, her work describes traumas, experiences

and emotions which many women go through and can relate to, yet keep quiet about -

“Most of my work starts off with me, or an experience with me, or something I’ve

witnessed, but then it transcends from me so other people can relate to it”- Tracey Emin

• Other artists, such as Cindy Sherman and Andy Warhol, prefer to depict themselves

through a guise, adopting different characters. For Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills

series, she dresses in different costumes, in varied roles and settings. The results

resemble publicity images made on movie sets, of stereotypical female roles inspired by

1950s and 1960s Hollywood films. They all represent clichés - career girl, housewife, girl

on the run, bombshell etc-"I feel I'm anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I

never see myself; they aren't self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear."

Clockwise from top left: Cindy Sherman, Untitled

Film Stills #21, 1977; Lucian Freud, Painter

Working, Reflection, 1993; Tracey Emin, I’ve Got

it All, 2000; Chuck Close, Big Self-Portrait, 1967-

8.

Gallery 2 artwork in focus: Self-PortraitChuck Close

1997

Oil on canvas

259.1 x 213.4 cm

• Chuck Close was part of the Photorealism movement in the 1970s and later of the Super-Realism

movement.

• He works in mixed media: oil and acrylic painting, photography and printing.

• Photorealism celebrated the glossy, mirror-like qualities of the photograph. After achieving this

ideal, Close turned to more abstract methods, using portraiture as a means of exploring unsettling

aspects of how self-identity is made of multiple parts.

• Close’s self-portraits provide an interesting area for comparison. The nonchalant stare of the young

man in Big Self-Portrait (on the previous slide) makes a striking counterpart to the knowing gaze of

the older Close as represented in this self portrait from 1997. It is clear that abstraction came to

play a more prominent role in his work. Each of the individual squares is a miniature abstract

painting in itself. Although abstract up close, they form a unified image from afar.

• He overlays a photograph with a grid template; the elements of the image/grid are then

systematically translated to another surface (canvas, paper, printing plate) square by square.

• Close doesn’t simply transfer the image, he playfully deconstructs it. Each square of the grid is filled

with a stroke of colour, a fingerprint or a texture which adds a new dimension to the work.

• His work is done entirely by hand - “I absolutely hate technology, and I’m computer illiterate, and I

never use any labour-saving devices although I’m not convinced that a computer is a labour-saving

device”.

Gallery 3 – Christopher Baker Hello World or: How I learned to Stop Listening and Love the Noise

Hello World! is a large-scale audio visual installation comprised

of thousands of unique video diaries gathered from the internet.

The project comments on the contemporary plight of

democratic, participative media and the fundamental human

desire to be heard.

The installation is composed of more than 5,000 video clips

that the artist extracted from portals such as YouTube,

Facebook and MySpace which he then assembled on a single

projection surface.

In each clip a person addresses an anonymous and unknown

audience on the internet from his or her private space. Each

one talks about his or her daily life, personal preoccupations,

desires and fears, or uses the digital space as a self-promotion

platform. The webcam plays the dual role of diary and

megaphone. The audio tracks of the videos overlap, making it

impossible to follow the voices of the individual people. All of

their stories collapse into a single "background noise",

becoming part of an enormous overflow of data.

Galleries 4 & 5 –Iconic celebrity selfies of our time & selfies from the beautiful and sublime to the mad, bad and dangerous

• Galleries 4 & 5 display selfies which have

become iconic images of contemporary

culture. These include celebrity selfies,

artist selfies & self-portraits, and selfies

taken by the general public which have

become famous through social media

sharing.

• This allows the viewer to consider what

qualities prompt one image to be

considered art yet another to be a selfie or

a mere record of a moment.

• The invention of smartphones and social

media platforms have opened new

possibilities for celebrities to directly

communicate with their public.

• Celebrity selfies have come to the fore as

a way for those in the public eye to have

more control over their own publicity. This

is preferable to the invasive manner of the

paparazzi.

• Selfies are not always as spontaneous as

they seem. They can be a communication

tool like any other, that can be manipulated

for marketing purposes.

This page from top left: From Eel Series,

Venice, Italy, by Francesca Woodman; the

famous Oscars selfie; Derrek Barlow

captures Christian Plaing’s selfie during The

Great Bull Run near Houston in 2014; Aaron

‘Bertie’ Gekoski attempting to take ‘The

Ultimate Shark Selfie’; Ryan Gosling takes a

selfie with a fan

Previous page, clockwise from top left:

Octopus Portrait, by Yumiko Utso; George

Harrison’s Taj Mahal selfie in 1966;

Rooftopper, by Kirill Oreshkin; Cinzia

Osele’s jellyfish selfie; Danish Prime

Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt takes a

selfie with Barack Obama and David

Cameron at Nelson Mandela’s funeral; Jean

Pigozzi’s selfie with Jerry Hall & Mick

Jagger in Paris

Gallery 5 artwork in focus: PopGavin Turk

1993

Waxwork in vitrine

2790 x 1150 x 1150mm

• Gavin Turk’s wide ranging practice often incorporates iconic images of figures taken from

popular culture and art historical sources.

• His work also deals with issues of authenticity and identity, including ideas around the

authorship of a work of art. He is known for appropriating other artists’ work, identity and

legacy in what appears to be part homage, part parody and part investigation.

• Pop is a waxwork figure of the artist as Sid Vicious in the pose of Andy Warhol's Elvis

Presley, which imagined the musician as a cowboy. It was the original King of Pop as

celebrated by the original King of Pop Art.

• Sid Vicious was a natural outsider who accidentally found himself at the heart of pop

culture. Both Sid and Elvis came to untimely ends, sucked up and spat out by the same

system. Both self-destructive figures, there was certainly nothing glossy or bright about

either of their respective ends.

• Pop is simultaneously a comment on the nature of celebrity and on the inbuilt self-

destruction of the star system, and also a wry take on the commodification of culture - in

which rebels, heroes, artists and icons are reduced to products whose value is determined

by the market.

• Removed from the mean streets of punk's DIY roots, here Sid Vicious is a museum object,

a historical curiosity in a glass vitrine to be gazed upon at a safe distance. Gavin Turk, in

his Sid Vicious guise, has also been rendered a museum object.

• Turk has a history of memorialising himself in a manner of ways. In 1991, tutors at the

Royal College of Art refused to present him with his postgraduate degree, a decision based

on his graduate exhibition. Titled Cave, it consisted of a whitewashed studio space,

containing only a blue heritage plaque commemorating his own presence as a sculptor

stating “Gavin Turk worked here, 1989-1991”.

Gallery 6 – Contemporary artists & the selfie

Gallery 6 presents contemporary artists working

with the themes of self-portraiture and the self.

Artists include Juno Calypso, Mohau Modisakeng,

Charlotte Colbert, Daniel Rozin, Juan Pablo

Echeverri and Tim Noble & Sue Webster

From left: PomPom Mirror, Daniel Rozin

2015; Self-Portrait, Charlotte Colbert, 2017;

miss fotojapon, Juan Pablo Echeverri,

selection of daily passport photos, 1998 to

present

Gallery 6 artwork in focus: The Honeymoon SuiteJuno Calypso

2015

Giclée print

• Juno Calypso is an English photographer living and working in London. She

works across photography, film and installation.

• Her practice explores constructed ideas of femininity and the idea of ‘the single

woman’.

• In 2011 she began a body of work in which she developed a fictional character

named Joyce. She began by using her grandmother’s house or renting rooms

from people online to stage her photographed scenes. She would then

transform into Joyce, using costumes and props.

• Joyce is a frustrated, lonely housewife who is consumed by the idea of a

feminine ideal. She is obsessed with beauty rituals and is often shown using

some kind of beauty device, product or tool.

• For the Honeymoon series, Calypso travelled alone to the Honeymoon Hotel, a

couples-only hotel in Pennsylvania USA, where she pretended to be a travel

journalist so that she could have access to all of the rooms. Once there, she

transformed into Joyce - putting on wigs, wedding lingerie, getting ready for her

new groom, slathering herself in green clay - beginning the exhausting

seduction process alone and in secrecy.

• The photographs themselves are simultaneously sweet and sinister.

• We see her draped across heart-shaped bathtubs in rooms surrounded by

mirrors. Her works are ultimately about two things - desire and disappointment.

• “I love the colour pink and our conflicted relationship with it. People feel weird

about the colour pink. It can be seen as innocent and juvenile, but also

embarrassing and sexual”- Juno Calypso

“I’ve always liked to work with things that people sneer at- anything

that people consider tacky, low-brow, or that makes people say

‘women are so stupid for liking this’ – that’s exactly the stuff I want

more of”.

Left: Untitled (Triptych)

2010

Mohau Modisakeng

C-print on watercolour paper

Below left: The Masterpiece

2014,

Sterling silver, metal stand, light projector

Tim Noble & Sue Webster

The Simple Ones

2017

Bronze sculptures

Tim Noble & Sue Webster

Since the late 1980s, artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster have been

known for their shadow sculptures built from objects like household

rubbish, taxidermy, and scrap metal. Under directed light, the

assemblages cast recognizable shadows, often self-portraits.

The Masterpiece is composed of casts of dead vermin the artists

collected together over a period – creatures such as rats, frogs and

squirrels. They welded them together into a ball of creatures. When

you shine a light on it, it casts a perfect profile of the two artists on the

wall. From afar you are drawn to the shining, glistening silver but when

you look at it closely, it’s quite disturbing – like a welded ball of death.

The Simple Ones are giant self-portraits cast from bronze. Based on

handmade maquettes made with electrical wire, the sculptures are

upscaled, domineering artworks which transcend human limitations.

Gallery 7 – Interactive artworks & competition winners

Gallery 7 features the winners of the international #SaatchiSelfie competition alongside interactive artworks

by contemporary artists

• Among the artists’ work is This Year’s Midnight (right) by Rafael Lozano Hemmer - an interactive mirror

which has a built-in computerized surveillance system. When a viewer stands in front of the mirror,

sensors detect the viewer's eyes and plumes of smoke are seen to rise from them

• Students will recognise this feature as similar to filters on snapchat

• Upon moving away, live and recorded eyeballs are extracted from the video and accumulate at the

bottom of the display screen

• This piece is inspired by the poem A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy’s Day, by John Donne. The poem is about

St Lucy, a young Christian martyr who was honoured in the Middle Ages. One of the stories surrounding

St Lucy involve her being tortured by eye-gouging, whilst another version has Lucy taking her own eyes

out in order to discourage a persistent suitor who admired them. When her body was prepared for burial

it was discovered that her eyes had been miraculously restored

• This piece comments on ideas of surveillance and the surveyed, but perhaps more importantly raises

notions of compliance and consent. In order to view the artwork, one inevitably becomes part of it -

without choice the viewer is displayed on the screen, often awkwardly watching him or herself until the

eyes start to smoke. Permission is not granted to the artist, or gallery, to retain a copy of the viewer’s

eyes, which will remain on display for a long time after the viewer has left the exhibition, and which will

stay digitally recorded and stored

This Year’s Midnight

Rafael Lozano Hemmer

2011

Plasma screen, computer, digital webcam, custom

software

Gallery 8 – Young British Photographers

As part of the title of this exhibition suggests, recent

technological developments in the smartphone mean that it

has potentially become an artistic medium, and tool of self-

expression for artists, photographers and enthusiasts. To

illustrate this, Saatchi Gallery together with Huawei have

commissioned a small group of 10 artists to create new works

using Huawei’s new P10 dual lens smartphone. The artists

worked in a very different set of environments, and either

integrated the smartphone photography into a bigger artwork,

or let the image stand on its own through their own unique

perspective on the world around them.

Previous page, clockwise from left:

• Hannah Starkey www.maureenpaley.com/artists

• Alma Haser www.haser.org

• Chris Levine www.chrislevine.com

• Tom Hunter www.tomhunter.org

• Jonny Briggs www.jonnybriggs.com

This page, clockwise from top left:

• Christopher Nunn www.christophernunn.co.uk

• Laura Pannack www.laurapannack.com

• Emma Critchley www.emmacritchley.com

• Matt Stuart www.mattstuart.com

• Simon Roberts www.simoncroberts.com

Gallery 10 – Zoom Pavilion

• Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is a Mexican artist, born in 1967. He collaborated with Polish

video artist Krzysztof Wodiczko to create Zoom Pavilion in 2015.

• Zoom Pavilion is a video-mapping (also called projection-mapping) installation that

interacts with the visitors. Video-mapping is a technique used to project images on

spaces and objects such as buildings. The piece uses face recognition algorithms to

detect the presence of participants and record their spatial relationship within the

exhibition space.

• The installation explores the concept of surveillance. Monitoring technologies featured

include independent robotic cameras, facial recognition algorithms, presence

detection and spatial distance calculation

• Zoom Pavilion is at once an experimental platform for self-representation and a giant

microscope to connect the public to each other and track them. Independent robotic

cameras zoom in to amplify the images of the public with up to 35x magnification: the

zooming sequences are disorienting as they change the entire image “landscape”

from easily recognizable wide shots of the crowd to abstract close-ups. The whole

installation is in a fluid state of camera movement, highlighting different participants

and creating a constantly changing animation

• Both artists' practice involve transformation of an existing built environment using

projection technologies to “augment” the site with alternative histories, connections or

public relationships

• The installation can be shocking as it confronts us with the idea of surveillance.

Surveillance is an uncomfortable concept that we tend not to think about yet this

installation forces us to acknowledge it

Selfie talking points

Do selfies and hashtags

lead to greater surveillance

of citizens?

Is a selfie merely self-

promotion or a more

accessible form of self-

representation?

Can selfies lead us to become more

confident in our appearances and

feelings of self-worth? Or do they lead to

reduced self-esteem?

Does constantly taking selfies

actually cause us to miss out on

life?

Can selfies be considered

art?

What qualities make us

consider one image as

art yet another to be

amateur?

Do selfies belong to a

certain age

group/gender/culture?

How trustworthy are

selfies?

What do you

consider the term

anti-selfie to mean?

ActivitiesThe activities on the following pages have

been designed in line with curriculum

aims. Activities can be adapted to suit

different age groups and learning abilities.

It is indicated if the activity is to be used in

the gallery or in school.

Cindy Sherman & Juno CalypsoIn-gallery

Compare the work of Cindy Sherman in Gallery 2

(Untitled Film Stills) and Juno Calypso in Gallery 6

(The Honeymoon Suite). Both artists use fictional

characters to create self-portraits. Analyse the work

of both artists using the criteria below:

- Do we know the names of these fictional

characters?

- What are their roles?

- What time period are the works set in?

- Where do you think the scenes are set?

- What props have been used? Have these been

included to assist the viewer in understanding the

work?

- Why do you think the artists have developed

these characters?

- Do these photographs count as self-portraits if the

artist is adopting a different character?

Ourselves / our belongingsIn-gallery / in-school

Selfies have been criticised for being superficial and shallow

because they focus only on appearance and not on other

personal qualities.

Ask students to empty the contents of their bags and organise

their belongings in a specific order, starting a personal

archive/collection. This could be in order of: value

(monetary/personal), size, age, condition, colour, usefulness

etc. Once completed, ask students to have a look at each

others’ collections and guess the order.

Questions:

- Does this collection better reflect oneself than a selfie would?

- Is this still a superficial representation of oneself, given that

it’s based on material assets?

- What would be the most truthful/ meaningful representation

possible?

Meeting the artistIn-gallery

A useful activity when visiting any exhibition is to split

the group into smaller groups and ask them to devise

a set of questions that they would like to ask the artist.

After a given time, ask the groups to swap questions

and work together to come up with the answers.

Observing gallery visitorsIn-gallery

Ask students to subtly choose another visitor in the

gallery and make a drawing whilst observing their

movements. Students spend 5 minutes drawing their

chosen visitor’s movements as a line, ensuring the

line remains continuous.

When completed, students can draw over the pencil

lines with a marker pen and then cut out the shape

that the journey made. This is a visual record of one

person’s experience of the From Selfie to Self-

Expression exhibition. Assemble all of the different

shapes together on the gallery floor.

Questions:

- Are these portraits?

- Are there any similarities between the drawings?

- Do people behave in similar ways to each other in

an art gallery?

- Would the drawings differ in another art gallery

which shows a different type of art?Listen & learn In-gallery

Ask students to choose an artwork and then use the voice

recorder on their phones to answer the following questions

(without saying the name of the artist or the title):

- How does this artwork make you feel?

- What do you think it is about?

- Is it a popular artwork? How are other people interacting with

it?

Students should then swap phones and listen to the recording,

to guess which artwork their friend is talking about.

Identity poemIn-gallery / in-school

Students can write an “I am” poem either based on a self-

portrait of their own or by pretending to be an artist on display to

better understand an artwork.

I am (your name)………………………………………………….

I am (two physical characteristics)………………………………

I am (two personality traits)………………………………………

I wonder (something you are curious about)………………......

I hear……………………………………………………………….

I see………………………………………………………………...

I am (repeat first line of your poem)……………………………..

I want (a desire)…………………………………………………...

I pretend (something you imagine)………………………………

I worry (something that concerns you)…………………………..

I cry (something that upsets you)…………………………………

I understand…………………………………………………………

I am (repeat first line of your poem)………………………………

I say………………………………………………………………….

I dream………………………………………………………………

I try…………………………………………………………………..

I hope………………………………………………………………..

I feel………………………………………………………………….

I am (repeat first line of your poem)………………………………

Hello! / OK!In-school

Students will have visited galleries 4 & 5 of the Selfie exhibition,

which focus on celebrity selfies and iconic selfies of our time.

Collect some copies of Hello! and OK! magazine, or an

equivalent publication. Ask students to choose one of the

spreads within the magazine and use it as a template for their

own feature on someone they consider should be famous for

something they have achieved.

Self-portraitsIn-gallery / in-school

- Why do you think artists make self-portraits?

- Do you think a self-portrait is easy to sell?

- Who might buy an artist’s self-portrait and why?

- What does a self-portrait reveal about the time in

which the artist lived?

- What can a self-portrait show about the artist?

- Discuss what might be an alternative portrait, for

example, what does your Facebook account say

about you?

Tim Noble & Sue WebsterIn-gallery / in-school

Visit the work of Tim Noble and Sue Webster in galleries

6 & 7. See slide 16 for further information on their

practice.

Using craft wire, students make miniature self portraits of

themselves. Without using a mirror, students must feel

their faces and their bodies, taking note of the dips,

curves and angles, and translating them into wire

sculptures.

This can be adapted for use in the gallery using tin foil

instead of wire.

Back to back drawingIn-gallery

In pairs, sit back to back with one person facing an

artwork of their choice. The other person should not

be able to see the artwork. The person facing the

artwork should describe it in as much detail as

possible to the other person, who will be drawing

what they hear in their sketchbook.

Allow 10 minutes and then swap. Feedback as a

group on how they found the exercise.

- Was it easier or harder than they thought it would

be?

- What were more important- drawing skills or

communication skills?

- Did it allow students to look at the artwork in

more detail? Would they have normally spent this

long studying it?

Making linksIn-gallery

Ask students to choose an artwork. Does the work

relate to any other areas of knowledge, such as

Science or Geography? Can they link it to any

other arts, such as film, music or literature?

Discussion of termsIn-gallery / in-school

Discuss the meaning of the following terms: democratisation of photography; immortalisation; confessional; video-

mapping; audio-visual installation; upscale; constructed idea of femininity.