Look At Me

Invented by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851) in 1839 and almost superseded by 1860, the daguerreotypes played an important role to rise the popularity of portrait photography over painted portraiture. This transition is due to the relatively low cost and the short exposure times that spanned between few seconds and several minutes. Since then, along with its technical developments, the widespread acceptance and employment of portrait photography are unmistakable both in the daily life, arts or media. To certain extent the beginning of video (art) in the late Sixties is also related to reduced expense and production time of this medium. The relation between photographic and moving images is the central point in Look at Me, an exhibition that, after Histories of a Picture to Come (23.09.2018 - 23.12.2018), is the second of a series with works from the Argos collection that explores this dialectic. Furthermore Look at Me features a selection of photographic portraits made in the frame of artists in residence program of Contretype, Centre pour la photographie contemporaine in Brussels. In the exhibition, the alternation of photos and audiovisual installations sets a dialogue between different kinds of portraiture, styles and time periods, but at the same time it tells us something about the persons depicted in front and behind the camera.
With works by Marie-Noëlle Boutin, Dirk Braeckman, André Cepeda, Nicolas Dufranne, Frédéric Gaillard, Philippe Herbet, Esther Johnson, Jacques Lennep, Chantal Maes, Valérie Mannaerts, Angel Marcos, Hans Op de Beeck, Ria Pacquée, Shelly Silver, Sarah Vanagt, Andreas Weinand.