Lookalike. Barbie, Lolita, Lara Croft
September 8 - November 3 2002
NFI
Witte de Withstraat 63
Rotterdam
www.nfi.nl
Participating artists:
Jenny Althoff (USA), Peggy Ahwesh (USA), Manuela Barth & Ursula Schmidt (D), Wilma & Carina Diepens (NL), Linda Erceg (AUS), Anke van Haarlem (NL), Micha Klein (NL), Justine Kurland (USA), Chantal Michel (CH), Mouchette (NL/FR), Hester Oerlemans (NL), L.A. Raeven (NL), Olivier Rebufa (FR), Anne-Marie Schleiner & Melissa Klayman (USA), Jennet Thomas (GB), Ellen von Unwerth (USA), Alexia Walther (CH).
Barbie, Lolita and Lara Croft are three female icons that recur in all sorts of ways in our contemporary society. They inspire countless photographers and artists, but also advertising and film directors. These three 'women' - one a doll, one a character from a novel, and one a 'game girl' - are at the heart of the exhibition Lookalike at the Nederlands Foto Instituut from September 8 through November 3, 2002. The exhibition examines the way in which photographers, visual artists, advertising directors, fashion designers, video artists, game makers and film directors have been inspired by these three fictional women.
Each era has its own icons and idols. In the 1950s/'60s these were primarily film idols; presently stardom has shifted to the popular cultures of fashion, music and the game world. Lookalike sets three fictional women on centre stage, figures that have left their mark on contemporary visual culture: Barbie, Lolita and Lara Croft. The exhibition comprises photographs, videos, performances, websites, web games and advertising work from various international makers - strikingly enough, primarily women.
Barbie, Lolita and Lara represent three divergent archetypical images for women. Barbie is the young, successful woman, obsessed with her appearance, who conjurs up for us the norms and values of a materialistic, Americanised society. But despite the focus on her appearance, Barbie has an asexual aura. This contrasts with Lolita, the apparently innocent child-woman from Nabokov's novel of the same title. In 1999 the fashion magazine Vogue introduced the Lolita girl as the new, sensual image for women. The newest heroine has been called into being with the aid of digital techniques: the militant, well-proportioned Lara Croft. This tough gal has made short work of conquering the hearts of both men and women. Nevertheless as an ambivalent phenomenon she provokes discussion: is she a role model for feminists or a new female cliche?
Lookalike intends to throw new light on the 'revival' of these traditional icons in visual culture, but also gives attention to new images for women. Artists and image makers provide a commentary - critical, activist but also humorous or parodic - on these female images. For instance, Ellen von Unwerth (USA) portrayed the model Claudia Schiffer as a living Barbie doll for Elle (August, 1994), while the significantly titled project 'Life/Size38' by Hester Oerlemans (Ned) appears to be a provocation against this ideal image. Bodyshop is still more explicit in its protest: a buxom Barbie played the main role in her 'Ruby' campaign from 1999. Artists like Justine Kurland (USA), L.A. Raeven (Ned) and Mouchette (NL/FR) appear to accentuate the innocence of the Lolita girls in their work, but at the same time with their photographs, videos and web projects evoke a surrealistic estrangement with regard to this phenomenon. That even with the arrival of digital visual culture there can still be stereotypes is clear from the work of artists like Anne-Marie Schleiner. She has developed various alternative computer games in which Lara receives competition from comic super-heroines.
The exhibit is curated by Flos Wildschut of the NFI and Deanna Herst of Axis VM, foundation for Art and Gender (Axis VM, Amsterdam.)
