As we always expect an artist to be looking out, beyond the studio, and interpret and examine the world and figures that surround us, it's always an interesting idea for the artist to look at themselves. Lucian Freud literally comes to mind, and even the likes of Tracey Emin or Chuck Closer also have made career's of looking back into the self with their work.
Richard Heller Gallery is about to open My Sweet Doppelgänger, a new group show that "gathers a diverse, international mix of twenty-four artists who each bring their own unique take, in various mediums, as to what the concept of “Doppelgänger” (whether “sweet” or otherwise) inspired in them for this exhibition." And Heller has made an interesting prompt: For the upcoming exhibition, My Sweet Doppelgänger, we offer a kind of reversal of what 'Doppelgänger' means, introducing a 'body double' for each artist, with a more benevolent and often friendlier face. In a loose adaptation of Jungian terms, this could be seen as an embrace of the shadow-self."
As the summer comes to an end, as our collective introspection and now subsequent anxiety about how to face this world continues to be the dominant thread of our lives, a show like this has an impact about how we see the self in such an unprecedented time. —Evan Pricco