Anthony Goicolea’s Class Picture (1999).Courtesy of the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York
Self-Portrait As Twelve Confused Schoolboys
For his contribution to Sean Kelly Gallery’s aptly titled group showing “Role Exchange,†up at the gallery through Friday, Williamsburg-based artist Anthony Goicolea morphed himself into twelve pictures of impish adolescence. This composite image is one of Goicolea’s many staged self-portraits in which the relatively diminutive artist slips easily into various “tween†roles, probing the inescapably awkward (and often sexually charged) trudge toward adulthood. Think of it as a visual analogue to Spring Awakening — if John Gallagher Jr. had insisted on playing all the roles.—Rachel Wolff