She's got the looks

And if you get close

She might bite your head off

To G...
I will find a way, I promise.

A Little Something By Me




All the molecules
every single one
the atoms
their spin
their charge
their charme
in circles
in beauty

[Raphael Hefti and his series Beauticians, from reGeneration. Get it!]
Raphael Hefti found his models in department stores. Choosing a frontal view, he wanted to capture in as much detail as possible 'the face as an image'- a concept that is further justified by the fact that the women photographed all sell cosmetics and are meant to represent the brand that employs them: Clarins, Lancôme, Chanel, etc. Individuality disappears behind a face that is coated in a layer of foundation and blusher, reminiscent of a mask. Hefti tells us that rather than faces themselves, we should talk about the desire for a face. Make-up and skincare products, visible in the background but impossible to distinguish because they remain out of focus, try to make us beleive that we can all change our faces and that it is possible to fight against time and the body's own fraglie nature. In its seductive appeal but also sometimes in its excess, creating a face means creating an image, as is eloquently demonstrated by Hefti's portraits of saleswomen as soldiers of consumerism.

Sorry for poor quality pics folks (another reason why you should buy a book of his).





There is something utterly interesting about these pictures. The gaze and the posture of these women are identical. The facial expression is reinforced with the reflection of the lightning panels from their eyes. This reflection is what gives them the horrifying look. Their masks cannot hide their bestiality.





Link to Hefti's site.

Last time I was in Istanbul, during a conversation somebody implied that photography (and by photography the speaker meant "taking pictures") was something that everybody will somehow be interested in a point in their lives, then get bored of it. Now, I realize I should've objected to this with the following argument:

Not if they have met Witkin...

"Fe, fa, fi-fo-fum,
I smell the breath of an Englishman.
Let him be alive or let him be dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread."

There is so much to do and this job is taking all my time. FUCK!FUCK!FUCK!

Anyway... I came across this painting in one of Einsturzende Neubauten's songs. And since then, I am looking at it every day. Someday I hope to see it in real (I beleive it's in the Guggenheim Collection). Here is a great critique of the painting. And here is the first paragraph of it (in case you're too lazy to click on the link and exhaust your brain reading the text):

"If you think that all art should be comforting, literal, narrative, perhaps somewhat erotic, and depict rationally classical articlesubtitleject matter, then your taste in art coincides quite easily with those of that noted German art connoisseur and would-be artist from the early twentieth century, Adolf Hitler. If, on the other hand, you feel art should have no relation whatsoever with nature, humanity, politics, or social message but exist purely for its own being, its form dictated only from the graphic, intellectual exercises of the artist's brain, then your tastes would fall perfectly in line with another art extremist of the time, Kazimir Malevich. "