PORTRAITS – Details, episodes & analysis

As AI art gets more and more sophisticated, how do we tell the difference between a portrait that’s created by a human being – with a soul – and art that’s created by a complex algorithm? And if we can’t tell the difference, will artists be out of a job?

Oxford mathematician Marcus du Sautoy explains how AI art works, and why he thinks code can actually help artists to expand their creative universe.

But there’s one big question that remains: What does AI art tell us about the inner world of AI itself?

See the portraits we discussed:

Edmond de Belamy, published by Obvious Art

The Next Rembrandt, brainchild of Bas Korsten

Kim Sajet, generated by AI

Kim Sajet, by Devon Rodriguez

You can see Prof. Marcus du Sautoy’s ‘Creativity Code’ lecture here.

In this mini episode from our 'Blink' series, Rick Chapman shares stories from photographing elite athletes who have competed in the Olympic Games. The first step, he says, is to put the camera down. The second is not to talk about sports too much.

Rick's ESPY Collection, for ESPN, features 40 celebrity athletes, including boxers, tennis stars and basketball royalty. You can find it here.

See the portraits we discussed:

Venus Williams, black and white

Venus Williams, color

Shaun White, black and white

Shaun White, color

Paris in the early 1900s was a magnet for convention-defying American women. It offered a delicious taste of freedom, which they used to explode the gender norms of their day, and to explore new kinds of art, literature, dance and design. In the process, they became arbiters of modernism.

This episode, we raise the curtain on the National Portrait Gallery’s “Brilliant Exiles” exhibition with curator Robyn Asleson. It features 60 trailblazing women, including the dancer, singer and spy Josephine Baker, and the bookshop owner Sylvia Beach, who took a chance on James Joyce. Also in the lineup: Ada ‘Bricktop’ Smith, whose bustling nightclub became a hub for American jazz musicians, and Romaine Brooks, the painter who reinvented herself, and then reinvented herself again.

The exhibition runs from April 26, 2024, to February 23, 2025.

See the portraits we discussed:

Ada “Bricktop” Smith, by Carl Van Vechten

Josephine Baker, by Stanislaus Julian Walery

Gertrude Stein, by Pablo Picasso

Sylvia Beach, by Paul-Émile Bécat

Romaine Brooks, self-portrait

The National Mall is a great canvas, in part because of all the history embedded there. It’s been a place of protest, celebration and mourning. It also hosts some spectacular monuments. But critic Salamishah Tillet says there is a lot of history missing from the Mall as a commemorative space, like desegregation and the displacement of Indigenous people.

Kim speaks with Salamishah about the ‘Beyond Granite’ exhibition she co-curated on the Mall, and also with Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada, the artist who created the largest portrait ever to go on display there. It was a six-acre composite portrait of several anonymous young men who had one thing in common: They all identified themselves as Americans.

See the artwork we discussed:

Out Of Many, One, by Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada

Of Thee We Sing, by vanessa german

The Soil You See…, by Wendy Red Star

America’s Playground: DC, by Derrick Adams

A globe turned to Haiti. A glove on the ground. A life-size portrait of President Abraham Lincoln contains intriguing details that can be read as a freeze-frame of race relations at the time of his assassination. It also may be the most lifelike depiction of the 16th president— standing to his full height and in full color.

The oil painting by W.F.K. Travers was ‘hidden in plain sight’ for decades at a municipal building in New Jersey. Biographer Ted Widmer played a role in re-discovering the portrait and he speaks with Kim about its place in history.

Travers’ Lincoln is currently on display at the National Portrait Gallery, on loan from the Hartley Dodge Foundation, and courtesy of the citizens of the Borough of Madison, New Jersey.

See the portrait here.

There are not many portrait artists who get recognized on the street, but it happens to Devon Rodriguez all the time.

After quietly honing his skill for a decade, Devon started posting videos of his live drawings of New York City subway commuters to social media. The videos took off, earning him some 50 million followers and placing portraiture in front of a huge new audience.

Kim speaks with Devon about the mentors who had his back, and this new model for showing art— not in museums, but on screens.

See the portraits we discussed:

Kim Sajet, by Devon Rodriguez

John Ahearn, by Devon Rodriguez

“The Rodriguez Twins,” by John Ahearn

María Elena Estrada, by Devon Rodriguez

Devon Rodriguez draws Kim Sajet, Instagram

Copyright law is complicated, especially when it comes to visual art. So there was a lot of fanfare around the Supreme Court’s May ruling involving a celebrity portrait photographer, the pop artist Andy Warhol, and an orange silk screen of the late musician Prince. Would the decision give us some clarity around what’s ‘infringing’ in the world of appropriation art?

Lauryn Guttenplan, former deputy general counsel for the Smithsonian, walks us through some high-profile copyright cases from the past, as well as the Supreme Court’s decision.

See the artwork we discussed:

Obama “Hope” Portrait by Shepard Fairey, original photo by Mannie Garcia

“Canal Zone” Collage by Richard Prince, original photo by Patrick Cariou

“Orange Prince” by Andy Warhol

Prince Portrait by Lynn Goldsmith

Silhouettes were a hugely popular and democratic form of portraiture in the 19th century. So an old ledger book full of cut paper profiles at the National Portrait Gallery caught a conservator’s eye. It promised a rare glimpse at people from all different backgrounds who lived in early America. It also held a surprise: It was laced with poison.

Lizzie Peabody, host of the Smithsonian’s Sidedoor podcast, brings us the story of the book, the man who created it, and the web of overlapping stories tucked inside.

See William Bache’s book of silhouettes here.

Digital artist Amalia Soto, also known by the username Molly Soda, wants to show us how we portray ourselves, or perform ourselves, online. She says the images and videos we upload don’t necessarily lie, but they do pose questions about the ways we curate our lives for unseen others. She also believes there is a lot we don’t actually control when we hit the ‘post’ button. With Glenn Kaino.

See the artwork we discussed:

Who’s Sorry Now? (2017)

Inbox Full (2012)

My Apology (2022)

As AI art gets more and more sophisticated, how do we tell the difference between a portrait that’s created by a human being – with a soul – and art that’s created by a complex algorithm? And if we can’t tell the difference, will artists be out of a job?

Oxford mathematician Marcus du Sautoy explains how AI art works, and why he thinks code can actually help artists to expand their creative universe.

But there’s one big question that remains: What does AI art tell us about the inner world of AI itself?

See the portraits we discussed:

Edmond de Belamy, published by Obvious Art

The Next Rembrandt, brainchild of Bas Korsten

Kim Sajet, generated by AI

Kim Sajet, by Devon Rodriguez

You can see Prof. Marcus du Sautoy’s ‘Creativity Code’ lecture here.