Hey, Rembrandt!
Photoworks, The National Gallery, London and Brighton & Hove Museums, Alejandra Carles-Tolra
One Old Master, 14 young people, 15 self-portraits. The Brighton Photography Club took a Rembrandt self-portrait as the creative starting point for a programme exploring visual culture and photography from the past to the modern age. As part of the programme, the young people’s self-portraits were professionally curated and exhibited alongside the Rembrandt at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery from May - August 2024.
Photoworks’ Photography Club is an initiative enabling young people to meet regularly, develop their camera skills alongside a professional photographer, produce photography and gain an Arts Award qualification. This programme is a partnership with Brighton & Hove Museums.
The young people aged 13 – 16 were supported by award-winning artist Alejandra Carles-Tolra and the museums’ Youth Engagement Team. The photographs create dialogue between a long-dead old master and today’s young people, complementing the Rembrandt painting and subverting and challenging traditional conventions of self-portraiture.
These new images examine the role of photography and self-projection in not only the past and present, but also in a speculative future.
Rembrandt’s Self Portrait at the Age of 34, 1640 was presented for the first time in Brighton as part of National Treasures, a nationwide celebration of the 200th birthday of the National Gallery in London. Painted by Rembrandt nearly 400 years ago, it is considered one of his most beautiful and fascinating works of art.
