Likeness: Portraits of Artists by Other Artists

Likeness: Portraits of Artists by Other Artists is the first exhibition to survey a recent history of artists’ representations of fellow artist friends, peers and idols. In presenting works created during the past three decades by a loose network of individuals active in such cities as Berlin, London, Los Angeles, and New York, this exhibition portrays the social dynamics of certain recent contemporary art milieus as well. 

Likeness investigates the various ways that artists have questioned and reimagined what exactly constitutes a “portrait.”  And unlike portraits of politicians or royalty, for example, these portraits clearly reflect a kind of a professional equilibrium, a dialogue in which the identities and status of both the portrayers and the portrayed are interrelated. Born of an encounter between individuals who share a similar defined social role, they commemorate and concretize the intimate social dramas of the art world: the private, and therefore privileged, interactions and relationships that typically exist beyond public scrutiny.  

Artists:  Matthew Antezzo, Roy Arden, David Armstrong, AA Bronson, Edgar Bryan, Heather Cantrell, Chuck Close, Anne Collier, Sam Durant, Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Richard Hamilton, Peter Hujar, Deborah Kass, Mike Kelley, Richard Kern, Bruce La Bruce, Sean Landers, Robert Mapplethorpe, Jonathan Meese, Richard Misrach, Dave Muller, Paul Noble,  Julian Opie, Elizabeth Peyton, Richard Prince, David Robbins, Wolfgang Tillmans, James Welling, Neil Winokur 

The exhibition Likeness: Portraits of Artists by Other Artists is co-organized by CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, and Independent Curators International (ICI), New York, and circulated by ICI.  The guest curator is Matthew Higgs. The exhibition and tour is made possible, in part, by an in-kind donation from Philips Electronics North America.