DescriptionLarge-scale photomosaic portrait mounted on acrylic titled JFK vs. Jackie, by artist Alex Guofeng Cao, 2010. The portrait is a famous black and white photograph of President John F. Kennedy but each small pixel of the portrait consists of a tiny image of Jacqueline Kennedy.
A small number of the tiny images are different, each one numerically representing an important date in President Kennedy's life. Counting from the top left corner, the 1,917th pixel, representing the year Kennedy was born, is a portrait of the Kennedy family. The 1,944th pixel, the year Joe Kennedy Jr. died, is a portrait of Joe Kennedy Jr. The 1,968th pixel, the year Robert Kennedy was assassinated, is a portrait of Robert Kennedy. The 1,969th pixel, the year Joe Kennedy Sr. passed away, is a portrait of Joe Kennedy Sr. The 2,009th pixel, the year Ted Kennedy passed away, is a portrait of Ted Kennedy. The artist included all of the Kennedy brothers and their father in the composition of this portrait.
The artist uses the interplay between the large image and the tiny pixel images to create a dialogue about the person in the portrait and other people in his life, a story within a story.
Curatorial Commentary
Exhibit Label: Alex Guofeng Cao immigrated as a teenager to the United States from China with his family in the 1980s. He studied photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and worked as a fashion photographer. Fascinated by black and white photography and inspired by artists such as Irving Penn and Robert Mapplethorpe, Cao uses photography to explore biography and human relationships. His large-scale portraits are made with tiny images - or “pixels” - of another person. Cao uses the interplay between small and large images to question the relationship between the two people represented, as well as to create a playful new way for the viewer to consider one person’s past. (Special exhibit, "Art Reframes History," on view on the Museum's seventh floor from September 9, 2020 through May 9, 2021)
Exhibit Label: Inspired by American pop culture and the interplay between celebrity and history, Cao produces large-scale photomosaic portraits of well-known figures. Each pixel within a portrait is a picture of another figure – for example, the portrait of President Kennedy is composed of small images of Jacqueline Kennedy. In the artist’s words, the small images and the portrait within one piece speak to each other, using the biography of one person to create a dialogue with the historic background of another.
Cao explains, “I love images of JFK, his family, his words. He inspires me. To me, they represent what America means. The American spirit.” (Special exhibit, "Art Reframes History," on view on the Museum's seventh floor from September 9, 2020 through May 9, 2021)
