Philip Akkerman’s 30 self-portraits pose numerous problems: what lies behind the scenario of one’s own portrait? Is it perhaps a philosophical model of the presentation of the artistic self? Or, through art, an unrestrained exercise of ego? Or a serious contemplation on the essence of existence? Or, perhaps, is it a certain freedom inherent to this genre of art, through which the artist can become the impresario of his or her own appearance?

Though Akkerman’s self-portraits range from 1981 to 1992, they share a common trait: in all of them, the artist makes eye contact with the viewer. Akkerman’s

As the title of an exhibition of abstract painting, “Kinder! macht Neues!” (Kids! do something new!) immediately provokes the question of whether it’s possible for today’s painters to find anything new in abstraction. Abstract art has been almost overloaded with meaning in this century. Was it revolutionary at the outset, expressing unknown, “universal” metaphors for mental states? How quickly did it become an icon of traditionalism, a sacred myth, like so many other myths of this century? One can still be moved to pose such questions when looking at contemporary abstract painting, but one can