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Printworks Gallery
January, 2001

Self-Portraits 2000
An Exhibition of Portraits of and by 66 Artists

by Jurek Polanski

The 'Self-Portrait' allows unnumbered possibilities. In earlier ages, it presented the artist as he or she wished to be seen, whether as self-promotion or as a working out of the artist's public role. With the Renaissance, personality came to the fore, and, in the nineteenth century, self-portraiture increasingly became self-examination, a psychological study (although earlier examples of this inevitably exist). And there, the artist can either accept what he perceives prima facie, or explore an alter ego, a projected persona. What captures our attention in the latter approach, has given birth to volumes on Michelangelo, Rembrandt, van Gogh. The self-portrait, like artists' portraits of fellow artists, exerts a special fascination. Romanticism tends to attribute the creative artist with some exceptional insight, and, turned upon itself, we expect that insight to perform revelations for us all. It is a modern myth, but it is nonetheless a myth with power.

All of which makes Self/Portrait 2000: A Twentieth Anniversary Celebration -- a showing of 66 artists, now at Printworks Gallery, Chicago -- an exhibition of exceptional interest. Printworks Gallery conceived the theme over a year ago, and requested that the artists -- all of whom have had associations with the gallery -- restrain their enthusiasms to a vertical format on 12 by 10 inch paper. That format highlights each individual work's content and quality, and has made it possible to accommodate all 66 artists. The gallery visitor has until February 17, 2000, to take it in, and judge -- just as each artist judges self; just as the artist would be judged. And a visitor, who stands apart, may yet make his own discoveries -- for no one ever sees himself as others see.
The art in this showing ranges from deeply emotive studies of personality; through oblique and objectified precis of individual lives; to light irony and the 'tongue-in-cheek' -- a tentativeness toward 'self' and about the very idea of anyone capturing or comprehending “self.”

Claire Wolf Krantz represents herself, a smaller imposition left of center, through a dark, murky semblance of what seems an Asian temple. In the center facade of that structure a large spoked wheel is enshrined. Utilizing photographic images, the artist has then painted the final state in oils on synthetic fabric. Krantz has traveled widely, with particular interest in East Asia. She has evidenced a great interest in the technology of creating images and how such images interact and develop image reception. Krantz studied at the University of Illinois, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Jurek Polanski

Claire Wolf Krantz is an artist, freelance critic, and guest curator.
As an artist she works in a combination of painting and photography as well as digitally created images.