The Looking Glass Self | Opening
Circle Culture Gallery and SAUT warmly invite you to the opening of The Looking Glass Self, presented alongside Berlin Art Week 2026.
Friday, 11 September 2026
17:00 to 22:00
Circle Culture Gallery
Gipsstraße 11
10119 Berlin
SAUT (Space for Art & Underrepresented Talent) is an independent curatorial and production practice dedicated to expanding visibility and access for underrepresented artists. For The Looking Glass Self, Circle Culture invited SAUT to lead the curation, bringing its selection of emerging artists into dialogue with two established positions from our programme: Jeffrey Cheung and Marco Reichert. Seen through SAUT’s questions around identity, touch, community and the act of looking, their works take on new meanings and extend the conversation across different experiences and generations.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition takes its title from the concept of the “looking glass self,” introduced by American sociologist Charles Horton Cooley in Human Nature and the Social Order in 1902. Cooley proposed that our sense of self develops through how we imagine ourselves appearing to others. The social world becomes a kind of mirror: we imagine how we are seen, anticipate how we may be judged and form an emotional response to that imagined perception.
The works move through questions of identity, intimacy, belonging and estrangement. They approach perception not as a passive act but as a charged exchange between bodies, images, memories and social spaces.
The visitor is not placed outside this question. To look at the works is also to participate in the condition they describe and to become conscious of one’s own position as observer.
To look is not to stand at a distance. It is to become part of the reflection.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Marta Camilo
Jeffrey Cheung
Eight Fang
Lee Kern
Marco Reichert
Rita Temudo
Siyan Zhang
Zhiyuan Yang
PROGRAM
OPENING
Friday, 11 September
17:00 to 22:00
PERFORMANCE
Sunday, 20 September
19:00
CLOSING AND PERFORMANCE
Tuesday, 29 September
18:00 to 22:00
Admission is free. Registration is recommended.
Curated by SAUT in collaboration with Circle Culture Gallery.