curating in the mirror
Kylie Linh Hoang, assistant curator
In the summer of 2024, Charli xcx released her seminal, brilliant, brave album Brat. On 360, the album’s introductory track, Charli sings “when you’re in the mirror, do you like what you see? When you’re in the mirror, you’re just looking at me.” The duality of this lyric struck me as indicative of the equal treatment of confidence and self-consciousness throughout the record. If we use 360 as a thesis statement, and understand the mirror as a metaphor, Charli is asking what and who is drawing attention when thinking about how we are perceived. Do we compare ourselves to others? Do we like how they see us? How much control do we really have over that anyway? Charli’s ability to convey the insecurity that comes with heightened scrutiny in tandem with the self-assured confidence that comes with being the princess of the underground pop scene suggests familiarity with and acceptance of the situation. In her own words, “that’s exactly what brat is all about: me, my flaws, my fuck ups, my ego all rolled into one.”
I think of portraiture as a reflective exercise, a two-way mirror that expresses an equal amount of information about the subject as it does the artist. If we consider portraiture expansively as a creative work that conveys personal essence through media, Brat, both the album and the movement, is Charli’s version of a self-portrait. Brat is intimate, and Charli’s vulnerability has inspired reflection on girlhood, celebrity, and generational trauma from both critics and fans. This is the guiding principle for when you’re in the mirror…: the vulnerability of portraiture, the intimacy of seeing, and the bravery of allowing yourself to be seen.
Figure 1
This idea is exemplified through pairing Dewey Albinson, 1922 by Frances Cranmer Greenman (Figure 1) with Alex, at Juxtaposition Arts, 2020 by Leslie Barlow (Figure 2). Both paintings are nearly full length (Greenman playfully quips that “To paint a full length is like playing Hamlet. It’s tough.”) and depict an artist at work. Greenman has painted Albinson contrapposto, fiddling with a paintbrush, in front of what looks to be one of his own landscape paintings of the Spirit Tree. Barlow painted Alex while working at Juxtaposition Arts, standing serenely in front of what looks to be one of his own paintings as well.
Frances Cranmer Greenman taught Albinson at the Minneapolis School of Arts (now Minneapolis College of Art and Design). In 1919, Grenman taught portrait, life, and still life classes, and, despite that she “did little more than to see the students had their pencils sharpened and their ears washed,” she boasts “that was the most distinguished body of students ever turned out by the school.” Albinson established a career as a painter and an arts administrator, notably serving as director of the St. Paul School of Art (now the Minnesota Museum of American Art) and Minnesota director of the Educational Division for the Works Progress Administration Art Center.
Leslie Barlow, who, like Albinson, studied at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, painted Alex, at Juxtaposition Arts in 2020. Describing this pivotal year, Alex said, “The quarantine and the Uprising have really impacted my identity a lot. 2020 has been one big identity…I don’t want to say crisis, but I’m figuring stuff out. You’re able to spend all this time with yourself…I think it was just like, “Who am I? What am I about as a person?” After the murder of George Floyd, all the racial components to that question became way more centered.” Alex’s own creative work honors graffiti practices through styled abstraction and collage, and he’s taught underserved youth classes on textile and screen printing as well as aerosol arts.
Figure 2
As mixed-race artists encouraging reflection on race and identity, it might seem that Alex and Barlow have little in common with Albinson and Greenman. While 98 years separate these painters and their subjects, both subjects, Alex and Albinson, are educators deepening their practices while building strong, creative communities. The artists, Barlow and Greenman, are both recognized for their sensitive portraits of Twin Cities residents.
Alex, at Juxtaposition Arts and Dewey Albinson were the first pairing that I made for when you’re in the mirror…, but the exhibition also invites contemplation on artwork by Christopher Harrison and Emma Amos, Moises Salazar, Louis Safer, and Frank Gaard, and Maiya Lea Hartman, Wing Young Huie, and Kat Eng. The sections consider race, representation, gender, and generational knowledge, many of which are themes that appear on Charli xcx’s Brat as well.
when you’re in the mirror… is an offering of portraits drawing heavily from the M’s permanent collection that considers the repercussions of perception through a relational emphasis. Who is depicting whom? And why does that matter?
Kylie Linh Hoang (she/her) is a curator and public historian who believes a deep understanding of our past can lead us forward to a more vibrant future. She also believes that museums are some of the most visceral places where history can be learned, and that they have the unique opportunity to promote social equity and restorative justice through exhibitions and programming. Kylie centers accessibility, accountability, and anti-colonial strategies in her museum work to create opportunities to engage that are meaningful and culturally relevant.
Figure 1: Frances Cranmer Greenman, Dewey Albinson, 1922, oil on canvas, purchase, Acquisition Fund, Collection Minnesota Museum of American Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Butler
Figure 2: Leslie Barlow, Alex, at Juxtaposition Arts, 2020, oil and acrylic on panel, Collection Bockley Gallery
1 “360,” track 1 on Charli xcx, Brat, Atlantic Records, 2024.
2 Charli xcx (@charli_xcx), Brat is out now!! Thank you so much for all the love and support you have all shown for this music, this campaign and for me – at my most pure, my most charli, my most brat, Instagram photo, June 7, 2024, https://www.instagram.com/p/C77frc7gy_y/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link.
3 The full quote reads: “To paint a full length is like playing Hamlet. It’s tough. The figure must stand and stand on its own weight-like Shylock’s pound-no more, no less. Painting a figure to the knees is not painting a full-length. Not by a long shot.” Frances Cranmer Greenman, Higher than the Sky, (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1954), page 136.
4 Among Albinson’s peers at the Minnesota School of Arts in 1919 were Adolph Dehn, Wanda Gág, and Elizabeth Olds.Ibid, page 129.
5 Dewey Albinson, interview by Mrs. Virginia Nagle, Smithsonian Archives of American Art, October 27, 1965.
6 Alex, interview by Lola Osunkoya, 2020.
