Julia Peirone deals with identity and gender issues in her photo and video works. She shows teenage girls and young women who are still searching for their identity.
Image gallery
Ausstellung GRAU Behelfsbild
The artist finds areas of tension between reality and construction. Peirone's work thus questions the power and limitations of photographic images - and also the way we find ourselves in them.
For the series 'Some like it hot' (2022), Peirone was inspired by selfies posted on Instagram, where she noticed similar poses and the same homogeneous makeup looks being posted in the medium. In her shoots, Peirone asked the girls to recreate the iconic look of Marilyn Monroe, placing the camera in the place of a mirror. The unconventional portraits humanized the models with smeared lipstick and curved eyelashes.
The installation "Squeaky Stardust" (2023) consists of a video work and a series of polaroid-like images. A heavily made-up model is seen slowly turning while music plays in the background. She is reminiscent of a ballerina in a music box who is constantly spinning in circles. A woman's voice says, "Smile," and the girl does it again and again. The camera flashes and captures her grimaces, her makeup smudges as she sheds tears. The invisible photographer's attention becomes a torment, while a squeaky toy covers every vocal expression of the protagonist.
Julia Peirone (b. 1973, Argentina) lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions, most notably in solo exhibitions at Liljevalchs+ (2022), Kalmar Konstmuseum (2018), Gothenburgs Konstmuseum (2017) and in group exhibitions at Moderna Museet (2017), SE, Artipelag (2014), SE, Prague Triennale (2008), CZ and Museum of Photograhy, Helsinki (2005). Upcoming solo exhibition: House of Sweden, Washington D.C., USA.
