Between Selfie and Self-Portrait

CEBU, Philippines – Are selfies the 21st century version of a self-portrait?  What even is a selfie, and why is everyone taking them all the time? Hashtag I woke up like this, hashtag I’m on a top of a mountain and you aren’t.

The artistic medium has rapidly become the universal way of taking control of our image and presenting ourselves in the best light or filter imaginable. But wait, isn’t that the same thing as a self-portrait – a portrait of an artist produced or created by the artist himself? Where’s the difference?

Bestowed “word of the year” by the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013, the official definition of “selfie” is “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media.” Unlike the traditional self-portrait, the love of being liked plays a key role for those who snap, enhance and upload to get attention. Although generally deemed as a lower form of artistic culture, prominent people like Barack Obama, David Cameron and the Pope have taken more than a few selfies in their time.

In March, Saatchi Gallery in London had its very own “Selfie to Self-Expression.” Call it narcissism, call it art, call it whatever you want, the selfie is here and dominating the prestigious world of art.

Think outside of the box, or even outside of the planet, next time you tilt your phone at a 45-degree angle just above the eye line, perfect your pout and bask in the nearest light source. Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide took what may be the greatest selfie self-portrait of all time during a spacewalk in 2012. Hoshide captures the sun, the earth, two portions of a robotic arm, his spacesuit and the deep darkness of outer space.

Love her or hate her, trailblazer of the artistic movement Kim Kardashian knows exactly how to take a good selfie. She knows it so well in fact, that she’s published “Selfish,” a 445-page book of chronological selfies that’s sold over 100,000 copies. But before there was Kim, there was Frida. Though the two females are worlds apart, the prize for the original female artist who dominated the art of self-portraiture is none other than Frida Kahlo.

A car accident, two unsuccessful pregnancies, a cheating husband and a whole lot of loss and pain led Kahlo to produce spellbinding self-portraits of herself that expressed her psychological and physical sufferings. The Mexican surrealist artist produced over 50 paintings of herself, expressing her pain rather than her glory or how she woke up that morning. “I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.”

To compare Warhol, Dürer, Rembrandt, Van Gogh or any other self-portrait master to that of a selfie snapper is ridiculous. However, the underlying end goal is the same in both ventures – the art of self-representation. Dating back as early as the 15th century, self-portraits were carefully contrived to represent only the best of its subject. Those silly hats, gold chains and fur coats that Rembrandt donned in many of his works were far from his every day attire, but no one else needs to know that except the man himself.

Van Gogh painted himself simply because he could not afford to pay models to pose, and it’s widely thought that Andy Warhol, master of the polaroid portrait and member of the 1970s glitterati, portrayed himself in a deceptive way that would raise questions about whether he was hiding behind his own image or purposely drawing attention to himself.

Although the two genres may have more in common than what first meets the eye, the underlying difference is that self-portraits are made with more time, money and skill while selfies are created by a much wider range of people, yet they’re managing to change the world of art history as we know it. Same, but different basically!

(www.publichouseofart.com)