A Quiet Talk Between Gentlemen (After Rembrandt)

In her series of paintings of people looking at art, Annie Cabigting bases her images on found photographs. Carefully breaking down a photograph into grids and reconstructing the image on canvas, she alters not only the way art is then seen and experienced but also the way it is valued and consumed. As viewers of her paintings, we are twice removed from the artworks being observed by visitors in a gallery or museum. Her work forces us then to ask many relevant conversations about art and the art world: How should we look at paintings? How do spaces contribute to our experience of art? Does the medium change the way we experience and understand an image? How does the medium alter the way we value and consume art? How does a contemporary artist engage with art history from both Western and Southeast Asian contexts? Cabigting's paintings of people looking at artworks might seem simple and straightforward and yet they raise questions about notions of gaze, spectatorship, authorship, authenticity, and value.