Smoke | Morgan Showalter
Photographs and video of young women smoking.
A simple action, a simple request. A brief portrait is created, as the participants engage in a familiar ritual and are able to reveal a little of themselves through their gestures and engagement with the camera and ultimately the viewer.
The women are recorded smoking a cigarette from beginning to end. They are usually taped in their own environment or one where they are comfortable. Sometimes the young women are awkward in front of the camera, sometimes they become stars, but always they are aware that they are being observed. The video accentuates the subtle sensuality of the situation, through the oral and increasingly taboo action of smoking, the voyeuristic observation, and the inherent beauty of each young woman.
The project utilizes representational forms that are particularly Western and coded as female sexual images. It touches on issues that deal with the representation of beauty, the male objectification of women, voyeurism, the “male gaze”, exploitation, fetishism, and the desire of men to collect images and representations of, or experiences with, many women.
It is however the intention of the project to surpass these base reactions, classifications, and structure in order present the participants as, quite simply, young women smoking cigarettes.
Opening: Monday October 16, 2006
Duration: 16.10 – 12.11, 2006
Hours: Monday – Friday 15:00 – 21:00 Saturday 12:00 – 16:00
CHEAPART
25 A. Metaxa Str 10681 Athens Greece
