Personal Private Public

Personal Private Public
Hauser & Wirth 22nd Street, New York
September 10 — October 26, 2019

→ https://www.hauserwirth.com/hauser-wirth-exhibitions/25213-personal-private-public

‘Personal Private Public’ is a group exhibition exploring the idea of the inner life in three main themes: introspection, intimacy, and voyeurism. Contemplating the ways in which we reflect upon ourselves and others, the works on view oscillate in tone from moments of gentle privacy to voyeuristic intrusions, each addressing the power of observation through realms of their own making. The exhibition features a presentation of work by Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Ivy Haldeman, Celia Hempton, Tala Madani, Paul McCarthy, B. Ingrid Olson, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Emily Mae Smith, Mira Schor, and Kohei Yoshiyuki, who are connected through an interest in probing the uneasy relationship between making and viewing images, often exploring timely themes of identity, sexuality, and fantasy.

‘Personal Private Public’ opens with a self-portrait by Paul McCarthy. A classic example of his early conceptual photographs, ‘Veil’ (1970) shows the artist standing in front of a mirror, cloaked in a piece of fabric. The veil at once obscures the subject and camera, clouding the photograph to create a ghostly image. The self-portrait navigates the private and public space within an image, and the reliability of the camera’s lens. McCarthy’s early photographs consider the containing structure of a room, and, simultaneously, the containing structure of a photograph.