Matthew Buckingham’s “Likeness” is part of a two-room installation at Murray Guy that examines portraiture (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Murray Guy
453 West 17th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through December 23
Admission: free
212-463-7372
www.murrayguy.com
Born in Iowa and based in New York City, multimedia artist Matthew Buckingham creates new ways to look at portraiture in his sixth solo exhibition at Murray Guy, the involving and intriguing “Likeness.” In one room, “Caterina van Hemessen Is 20 Years Old” examines a 1548 self-portrait of van Hemessen working at her easel. A 16mm projector depicts reverse-image details of the painting onto a screen, bounced off a mirror, while a series of texts about the history of the artist and painting surround the walls, each needing to be read using small hand mirrors, placing the viewer in the position of artist, who, in self-portraits, are essentially painting reverse images of themselves, as if the canvas is a mirror. In the second room, a move appears to be under way, with boxes and furniture gathered near the center, but a television is on, showing close-ups of a dog from a 1650 Velazquez painting; the detail focuses on a family member not usually left in storage as a voice-over discusses Prince Felipe Prospero of Austria, the erstwhile primary subject of the work. Taken together, the two installations investigate both how portraits are made as well as how they’re viewed, playing with ways of seeing in addition to the creative process itself.