Mirror Mirror The Reflective Surface in Contemporary Art

From the art of Cindy Sherman to Anish Kapoor, from Yayoi Kusama to Tracey Emin, MirrorMirror presents an intriguing and gloriously illustrated global survey of “reflective” work by more than 150 artists across media, nationalities, genders, and locations. A fascination with mirrors and reflective surfaces is a common theme among artists of the past. Michael Petry’s thought-provoking introduction begins with Jan van Eyck’s celebrated Arnolfini Portrait (1434), one of the first paintings to feature a significant mirror. Petry references key works by the great masters—from Diego Velázquez’s The Rokeby Venus (1647–1651), to Édouard Manet’s complex painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882), and Claude Cahun’s Reflected Image in Mirror, Checked Jacket (1928), a seminal photograph for those whose gaze is often upon themselves. Present-day practitioners are no less intrigued, revisiting historical concerns and approaches for contemporary circumstances, often working with modern technologies