Self-Portrait is not intended as a diary of Alberto García-Alix, nor is it meant as an egocentric exercise. His concept of self-portrait is very broad, for it takes in much of the work in which he sees himself reflected. It is hard to find a single piece by García-Alix that is not highly self-referential; indeed, his oeuvre as a whole might be regarded as forming a single large self-portrait. The exhibition, under the official section of PHotoEspaña 2014, looks back over his career, from his early self-portraits of the late 70s to photographs of fragments of his body which respond to various needs arising as he recounts his particular decomposition of the self-portrait. Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid hosts this solo show until 28 September.
In the course of his career, Alberto García-Alix (León, 1956) has received all the major Spanish awards, including the National Photography Prize (1999), the Madrid Regional Government Photography Prize (2004) and the PHotoEspaña Prize (2012). He has also lived and worked in France and China. Since 1981 he has had numerous exhibitions, including one-man shows at Les Rencontres Internationales d’Arlès and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. He has published a dozen photobooks and produced creative videos in which word and image are blended. His writings include around 50 essays and short stories , published in newspapers, cultural magazines and picture books. As a publisher, he founded the cult magazine El canto de la tripulación and co-directed the collection Los Libros del Cuervo.
