Reading the messages

Reading the messages

I'm not sure what I had expected from the exhibit Portraits and Power at the Strozzina, Palazzo Strozzi's contemporary art space, because it is running in tandem with the Bronzino exhibition upstairs and I (correctly only in part) assumed that it is about how contemporary figures construct powerful

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Thu 21 Oct 2010 12:00 AM

I’m not sure what I had expected from the exhibit Portraits and Power at the Strozzina, Palazzo Strozzi’s contemporary art space, because it is running in tandem with the Bronzino exhibition upstairs and I (correctly only in part) assumed that it is about how contemporary figures construct powerful self-images through photography-in a manner similar to Bronzino’s carefully planned portraits of Cosimo de’ Medici and his family. So when I was first greeted by Helmut Newton’s large black and white portrait of Margaret Thatcher, I figured I’d hit the nail on the head. But as I worked my way through the space, I realized that the word ‘portraits’ in the show’s title is just half of the equation: it’s portraits and power, not of power. For power, we learn, can be represented through spaces, actions and hidden organizations, not only through what we think of as portraits.

 

To read the entire article visit Tuscany Arts.

 

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