M+B is pleased to announce the exhibition ALISON JACKSON: CONFIDENTIAL , featuring Jackson's controversial photographs that have astonished and sometimes shocked audiences worldwide. Her work goes where others fear to tread in her treatment of fame and celebrity. The exhibition is accompanied with the release of Jackson's monograph, Alison Jackson: Confidential , published by TASCHEN. This is the first time Jackson's work will be exhibited in Los Angeles.
Alison Jackson creates films, photographic images and sculptures about our fixation with fame and celebrity culture. These Mimeses use look-a-likes of celebrities and public figures to create a photographic or filmic image, which challenges the observers' perception of reality by creating a false reality. Only on second or third glance does the viewer question the truth of what they are seeing. Jackson describes her work as an exploration of what we see and what we imagine, the interplay of our voyeuristic needs and our urge to believe, challenging the photographs' claim to tell the truth. Jackson is an astute observer of the contemporary cult of celebrity. Her reinterpretations of familiar media images have shocked, provoked, amused, and most importantly caused an entire generation to re-assess its perceptions and expectations of modern-day Icons.
The question is: How limited a picture do we receive of these icons? We suspect there is much more than we are told or read about. So our imaginations get to work to compensate for our lack of real information. Thus we are continually being seduced away from the 'truth' into a world which has no 'real' grounds of integrity and authenticity. At best, a photograph of a celebrity reproduces something authentic only at the very moment the shutter clicks. We have been teased and seduced into giving tiny fragments of 'reality' an absolute authenticity. Images are by nature titillating and 'of fantasy'..., aiding this process. The photograph has become more real than the real.
The aim is to create likenesses of icons, where in the image, the simulations of icons, 'threatens the difference between 'true' and 'false, between 'real' and 'imaginary'. The 'real' subject becomes not necessary. The photographic image or the icon is more important and more seductive. It doesn't matter to the viewer if the portrayal is not the 'real' - as long as it looks like him or her - it creates a temporary confusion. This is the confusion the work searches to create. We think we are looking at something real, but we're not. They are false images of look-alikes of the real thing. Nevertheless, the photograph is authentic one sense, Jane Smith and Jo Bloggs really exist as look-alikes, but not the celebrity you think it is. They portray a false picture of perception. The photographs reflect what really exists in the public imagination. They highlight the difference between what we see and what we imagine. This is bound up in our inherent greedy voyeurism and our need to create a folk religion.
Solo and group exhibitions include
: ICA, London, UK (2007); Hayward Gallery, London, UK (2004); International Center of Photography, New York, USA (2003); Musée de la Photographie a Charleroi, Brussels (2002). Jackson created an award-winning advertising campaign for Schweppes and won a BAFTA for the BBC TV series
'Double Take' in 2002. Jackson has published two books; 'Private' (Penguin UK, 2003) and 'Confidential' (Taschen, 2007), Lectures have included Tate Modern and The National Portrait Gallery in London, UK.
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
Powerful images dominate the world. Pictures of celebrities who have reached the status of icons or demons. They are news - whether they are the Royal Family, Madonna, Posh and Becks or Britney Spears. This news becomes intrigue; it becomes difficult to differentiate between what is real and what is fantasy, what is important and what is not.
These celebrities are the icons of this contemporary folk religion. The pictures we have of them correspond to the religious pictures of the past. We find ourselves believing that what these pictures portray, really is the whole 'truth' about the subject. For example, Marilyn Monroe is just a sex goddess; Britney Spears is white trash; Camilla is usually portrayed with a touch of the wicked old witch and so on.
The question is: How limited a picture do we receive of these icons? We suspect there is much more than we are told or read about. So our imaginations get to work to compensate for our lack of real information. Thus we are continually being seduced away from the 'truth' into a world which has no 'real' grounds of integrity and authenticity. At best, a photograph of a celebrity reproduces something authentic only at the very moment the shutter clicks. We have been teased and seduced into giving tiny fragments of 'reality' an absolute authenticity. Images are by nature titillating and 'of fantasy' , aiding this process. The photograph has become more real than the real.
This work is about simulation. Creating a clone or a copy of the 'real' on paper. It is not a fake, it takes the place of the 'real' for a moment, whilst looking at the image. The aim is to create likenesses of icons, where in the image, the simulations of icons, 'threatens the difference between 'true' and 'false, between 'real' and 'imaginary'. The 'real' subject becomes not necessary. The photographic image or the icon is more important and more seductive. It doesn't matter to the viewer if the portrayal is not the 'real' - as long as it looks like him or her - it creates a temporary confusion. This is the confusion the work searches to create. We think we are looking at something real, but we're not. They are false images of look-alikes of the real thing.
Nevertheless, the photograph is authentic one sense, Jane Smith and Jo Bloggs really exist as look-alikes within the image, but they portray a false picture of perception. The photographs reflect what really exists in the public imagination. They highlight the difference between what we see and what we imagine. This is bound up in our inherent greedy voyeurism and our need to believe.
