Alison Jackson & The Public Obsession With Celebrity Status

Famed photographer Alison Jackson has a special oeuvre that distinguishes her from the myriad of other photographers out there: she gives her spectators none other then the Queen of England on the throne aka. the toilet, reading a newspaper. You think it’s a fake? No it is not…

… however the originality of this picture rather points out the originality of the idea. Not that there actually are pictures of the queen on the “throne” rerading all about the latest developments in the Middle East or gossip. Alison Jackson has specialized in creating staged pictures that would make every paparazzo’s heart bounce and gossip fanatics unconscious out of sheer happiness. She takes celebrity lookalikes and doppelgangers, dresses them, and a scene, up and then takes their picture. Kind of paparazzo, kind of not. In some way kind of artsy already.

Picture courtesy of Alison Jackson, Retrieved from: http://www.alisonjackson.com/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2014-06-07-at-10.04.02.png

One could ask why this seems to be a real thing, and by real I mean a quite successful thing, but Alison Jackson provides the answer with her pictures. These photographs have an almost symbolical function as they show one thing very clear (With a little blur to give paparazzo effects.): The, in our society common, human desire to see the human, flawed, normal and vulnerable, behind the fame. What we want are not the glam shots from the magazine covers, the perfect images from their websites or the beautifully airbrushed promo pictures from an album campaign. We want nasty pictures, imperfect one and derpy ugly faces. It is our inner most desire for decay that makes us love such pictures as they rest our own desire. The desire to be unattainably perfect, poised, trim and waxed to the nines. They destroy the celebrity’s notion of perfection and give us just the material to gossip and allege. And a good rest of our vain and expensive strive for airbrushed perfection.

Jackson’s pictures give us access to parts of these celebrities, or royals, that remain untouchable for us “normal” people. These pictures represent the photographed equivalent of a celebrity’s humanity. If there is one thing we think about a gigantic piece of work, as a celebrity career, it sure is: What is all behind all of this and what effort has been put into it? And as the actual celebs would never be up for such pictures Jackson makes them up. However they do not mock or ridicule the celebrity impersonated, just give him or her more depth then their public identity has. 

I guess what I am really to transgress over here is the simple fact that these pictures show our societies obsession with owning a piece of someone, even if this piece is just a mock photo. It triggers our inner voyeur and fulfils our wish to see exhibitionism all over. Even if no one really likes to admit to that fact. Yet, I cannot say that one of my many guilty pleasures wouldn’t be gossip magazines!

Make sure to pay Alison Jacksons website a visit right here, and go see her exhibition if it hits a town near you!