A Famous London Gallery Just Opened A Selfie Exhibition

The Saatchi Gallery in London has just launched an exhibition of selfies. That’s right: Saatchi and selfies = art.

After calling out for people around the world to submit their favourite selfies, Saatchi has collated these together to create From Selfie To Self-Expression. The exhibition poses the question of whether we can view our digital self portraits as part of a commentary on something larger.

Selfie To Self-Expression also presents works by artistic greats like Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Cindy Sherman alongside selfies from our social media-soaked digital world. Think of the Ellen Oscars selfie or the one taken by Helle Thorning-Schmidt with Barack Obama and David Cameron.

CEO of the Saatchi Gallery and curator of the selfie exhibition, Nigel Hurst told TIME, “For the last five centuries, humans have had this compulsion to create images of themselves and share them; the only thing that has changed is the way that we do it. Selfies are easily the most expansionist form of visual communication that any of us have experienced for generations, which makes them noteworthy in their own right. We can’t ignore them as a cultural institution.”

While I’ve never categorised any of my selfies — including the one out the front of the Colosseum complete with a double chin and nose pimple — as part of a “cultural institution”, I’ll take it. A new form of appreciation for selfies is building. Also, they’re very fun.

The exhibition opened in London late last week and will run until the end of May. Find out more here.

(Lead image: Ellen DeGeneres/Twitter)

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