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Photo: Scott Leen
Me and Myself
Photo: Scott Leen

Me and Myself

Date1991
Label TextArneson's self-portraits mix irreverence, informality, and humor. From a distance this head looks suspicously like a straightforward echo of a classical bronze, complete with empty eye sockets. Close inspection reveals that Arneson has "defaced" it with such punning phrases as "It is eye; I am it; it is me; find this mind of mine." The wordplay continues on the pedestal, which is decorated with a daunting alphabetical list of "self" adjectives, beginning with "self-abased." "Me & My Self" is impressed word by word on the four sides of the base.
Object number91.248
Photo CreditPhoto: Scott Leen
Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Collection Highlights: 1945 To The Present, September 12, 1996 - June 1, 1997. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Poke in the Eye: Art of the West Coast Counterculture, June 21 - September 2, 2024.
Credit LineGift of the artist and Rena Bransten in memory of Howard Kottler
Dimensions49 x 21 x 22 in. (124.46 x 53.34 x 55.88 cm) Thickness: 3/16 in. 194 lb 16. oz (88.45 kg)
MediumBronze
This Head Is Mine
1981
Object number: 84.222
Photo: Jueqian Fang
2019
Object number: 2020.25
Photo: Elizabeth Mann
Jim Goldberg
negative 1978, printed 1983
Object number: 2016.10.1
© (1955), 2009 Imogen Cunningham Trust
1955
Object number: 89.37
Photo: Elizabeth Mann
1946-47
Object number: 47.120.10