FEMINIST,
2011-2013
Catrine Val records situations whose very banality lends them the archetypical character of myths of the commonplace. The person depicted has absolutely nothing to do with the here and now. In this case, fashion functions as a “tiger’s leap” into the past, as Walter Benjamin once so aptly put it; however, it is not that the past is brought back to life, but rather the very fact that it is over. FEMINIST hovers between the realms of fashion and performance, critique and joke. Throughout this photographic series, she transforms herself again and again through the assistance of often cobbled-together, yet thrilling, disguises. Construction is at the forefront of this work. Construction is purposefully evident in the meticulous process of Val’s transformation; furthermore, the artificial so to speak, is unravelled in every portrait. The elaborate staging and the wealth of motifs and poses, results in endearingly haphazard depictions of the contradictions of 21st century womanhood. Construction is at the forefront of this work. In post-war West Germany where Val was born and raised, the abundance of serialized architecture represented the future: the physical rebuilding of a society and the growing wealth of the economy. It is purposefully evident in the meticulous process of Val’s transformation; furthermore, the construct, the artificial so to speak, is unravelled in each and every portrait. The figure in these self-portraits does not have a place anywhere; her time is not the present, and the moment depicted is an impossibility.