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!

"I Love Art" - Get them clothes changed! - Switcheroo by Hana Pesut

Photographs are great, am I right? You can literally capture everything, from the most candid and meaningless shot to the most iconic and historically important moment. But, what you can capture as well, is potantial for discompfort. Yes, that is possible. And Hana Pesut has done that, in a beautiful way!

 

Her tumbler is a fascinating and very urban seeming wild mxiture of all sorts of (mostly) portrait photographs with tons of different photo concepts and great ideas. But the series that got her in the spotlight, and actually has caught y attention and admiration, is called "Switcheroo". What may sound quite mysterious and maybe complex is actually a simple, but very strong, idea and a clean concept. In this series Pesut has asked couples of strangers, as far as I have seen the pictures all couples are male and female, to be photographed. She has taken a photograph of them and then has taken another one of them. BUT: this time the two photographed individuals have switched clothes. And out comes an interesting picture, with an even bigger question in the back. Do we feel compfortable with these pictures, or do they evoke some sort of discompfort?

As one can imagine, there is a war going on right now. And this war is not faught with weapons or violence, well mostly not, but is between "morals", gender construction and the possibilities and the will of people to accept change. What I mean is: Are we ready to accept different notions of gender in our society as "normal" and part o the spectrum, or do we still keep close to what classically is a manly and what is feminine. Are we able to accept and agree over thefact that gender is fluid, its nature is constructed and its existance is a performance? If looking at the following pictures might evoke the sense in you, that you might feel a discompfort in seeing people wearing clothes not directly assignable to their gender, and walking the streets like that, there is the possibility that you might not agree with me to some point.

By the way: The pictures I use of course are property of Pesut. But these three following are my favorites, of what I have seen so far.

If you ask me, I would loo twice on the streets. But thing is I would actualy walk along with a big smile and be happy that people dare to challenge stereotypical notion of gender through fashion. And, lets be honest for a second, most of the people in the clothes of the other don't look bad. I mean men in dresses is probably the thing that causes the biggest stirr, but they don't look bad in them, they just look unusual. Anyways, I find the photographs to be a great, and much needed, idea. Gender is a construct, a performance and actuallly pretty useless since gender is not sex. So go ask: "Is this causing any discompfort to someone, and if so, why?

"I Love Art" - Masculine,Feminine & Nir Arieli

You know I love me some good art. And this time I can combine my love for art with my activism in the area of gender and gender performance. My focus this time: The gender bending and blurring photography of Nir Arilei.

Nir Arieli started his photography career as a military photographer. He got a scholarship at the New York School of Visual Art and graduated with honors. His website bio says that he is focusing on photography of dance and is into beauty and art. His photographs are wonderfully natural and one series in particular has captured my direct attention through a German news website. The series is called "MEN". I got my two favorite pictures from this series for you below. (And of course the copyright belongs to Nir! ;))

I love this one since it is absolutely the combination of a Lana Del Rey vibe photograph. And Lana is all about the glam side of the 50's and super stereotypical  femininity and bad girl mix. The fact that Nir choose a handsome lack man and added him into the scene of a feminine floral surrounding destroys the stereotype of men ad black men in stereotypical (I mean what is more stereotypical than black man as bro's?). I just love it, and besides: It is a wonderful picture.

And this one? I like that it is sat in this clear environment and as well feminine surrounding of the flower print. And in all this we have a nude man lying down, but with a stereotypical symbol of masculinity: a beard. And since the overall is very white it highlights the vulnerability of men and the constructiveness of masculinity.

On the website I found his photographs said that the series is about men in stereotypical poses is only getting attention because it is shocking to see men in such feminine poses that display the stereotype of women as vulnerable. Okay. I was a bit in shock about this description. I don't find these shocking. I find these to be deconstructive and beautiful. But not shocking. We really need some more gender deconstruction by pictures such as Nir's. Anyways. his photographs are beautiful, amazing, academically usable and they are true art. So go and check out his website nirarielie.com.

"Iconic Photography" - Nirvana meets RuPaul

Photos and photography are a part of how we keep memories and important moments in our life. With pictures we keep things from our past and preserve what we love. History in progress often is documented with photographs, some of these photographs have gone around the world and reached an iconic status of themselves. But some photos capture more then what meets the eye.

Such images might not be that iconic, and sometimes do not even go around the world. But things are that these images are very well able to transmit things on a whole other level. They create feelings and provide us with the certain feeling of the moment the image was captured. Since everyone of us has a digital camera, a smart phone or a tablet and takes photographs all the time, shares them in digital networks and makes them available for everyone, images with the certain qualities I described become more and more valuable. One of these images is from the 90's. Featured on this image are, the supermodel of the world and probably most famous drag queen of the world, RuPaul Charles and iconic, tragically died Nirvana member, Kurt Cobain. Also on the picture are the other members of Nirvana.

Of course I did not take the photographs. But the rights belong to whoever took these.

I Love Art! - Lana Del Rey as the photographers doll

Dressed, photographed and left lifeless.

What I wanted to show with this picture is Lana Del Rey in a Marilyn Monroe situation. I wanted to give the impression of having your picture taken and therefore just being a doll that is being ripped off. Her face is lifeless and her figure and hair doll like. Lifeless but beautiful. This idea i got from a book that I read about Marilyn Monroe and psychoanalysis. In it the author analyzed Monroe's relation with the camera. Practically she loved to be photographed but on some point of her life she just felt that she was a puppet. And the reproduction of her in photo made herself just an object and less important due to her being consumed on photograph. So herself was no longer a use. 

I Love Art! - The Vessel!

A Vessel is a construct where you can get back in, stay there and come out when you have found who you really are. 

That is what inspired this series of photographs which I have worked over after I have taken them. It has been some time since i made these. And its my idea of what i think is important in my life so take a look: