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| Pictured: Jesse Willesee |
Jesse Willesee is an artist from Sydney Australia; He is a self-described anarchist and ‘controversial artist’, his work combines pop culture, social issues and audience interactivity. his work is inspired by images of pop culture circulated within social media sites such as Tumblr.com and instagram.com.
He is best known for his interactive works he calls ‘seven hundred photos’ which reveal the importance of symbolism within a late capitalist society. These exhibitions are created in rented hotel rooms filled with models who pose for the viewers (of whom almost all are photographers) the scenes are highly stylized and idealized.
The photos from these exhibitions expose the absurd relationship between the real and the illusion, and expose our obsession with the fantasy surrounding fashion. Due to a rise in the availability of inexpensive semi-professional photography equipment there is also a rise in hobby artists which creates a need to redefine the idea of what it is to be a traditional artist. Jesse’s work creates a platform for artwork to be created and fulfills the desire for hobby artists to create work.
This is demonstrated when Willesee says:
“I realized everyone had a camera and nothing to shoot. That’s where the idea for Seven Hundred Photos started.”
Willesee is a contemporary pop artist, and his work is informed by images he experience through electronic media, mostly from social media sites such as instagram and tumblr. For example in an interview about one of his earlier photography exhibitions entitled ‘22 girls’ he stated:
“Yeah 22 girls came from a trend I noticed on Tumblr and Instagram. A lot of girls were taking pics of themselves smoking weed.”
His work make use of the visual language that is regularly displayed in these types of media. These sites show us the communicative aspect and importance of symbols in our culture, as these sites utilise symbolism in images to define the user and to communicate anything in general, as they are mostly image based platforms. Jesse borrows his artistic styles from these online communities, he and similar artists also actively maintain blogs and interact with these communities. In this way Willesee creates a relationship in which both the artist and the audience gain inspiration from each other while contributing to the development of visual language within the community.
Jessie's work is similar to other contemporary photographers such as:
- Pretty puke
- Terry Richardson
- Mark Hunter AKA ‘The Cobrasnake’
All of whom use a style of candid photography similar to the Polaroids of Andy Warhol. They all use the harsh light of the flash, un-impressed or un-expressive models. These photographers also display a clear interest in fashion, while many of them also run their own fashion shops and brands. Fashion is the most obvious realization of our identity being defined by consumption, and all these photographers play into our understanding of this, whether it is intentional or not.
Jessie’s exhibition ‘product placement’ focuses on our understanding of defining ourselves through the consumption of products.
In an interview he stated that;
“I noticed a trend for people to pose with products in their pictures. And I thought that was interesting. In the past that was product placement - where a company gets you to use your image to help promote themselves. Now it’s kind of happening in reverse.”
He explains that through social media it is no longer the products using consumers to advertise themselves, but rather the consumers that use the products to advertise their personal identity.
So the consumers definition of themselves is changed by the symbolism associated with the products which they associate with. This is similar to Anastasia Klose’s work, in particular her recent work at the Melbourne now exhibition In which she adopts the same visual language used by these artists and also in many fashion adverts and products.
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| Screen shot of Willesee's 'Hate Wall' |
Willesee and similar artists display an obsession with intentionally trying to appear subversive by adopting an appearance of a punk lifestyle. Their images are deliberately disgusting, degrading and overly sexual, which creates an ‘ugly beautiful’ appeal. These photographers embrace a low-art and low-fi style of photography and purposefully use ‘bad design’ aspects. They enjoy toying with the banal and their works can be read as a critique of the overt commercialization of culture; because they replicate the same 'hype' and aesthetics.
These artists are also deliberately trying to be confronting and disgusting. The most obvious display of this is Williesee’s use of a ‘hate wall’ on his website. This is an attempt at deliberately trying to associate himself as a rebellious and ‘misunderstood’ artist; Such as Van Gogh or Kanye West.
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| Pictured: Kanye West 'Misunderstood Artist' |
And although this is an adolescent approach to creating an image for oneself as an artist I do not want to complete debunk his reputation. His artworks are not controversial, (despite all reviews I've read stating that his work in fact is) the works are also not really compelling, but what is attractive to me is the deliberate grossness and absurdity of these works,
It’s like a car crash, so morbidly fascinating that you cannot look away.
Jesse’s style is similar to a modern day Baroque or Rococo because these styles display an exuberant amount of pleasure and sophistication in fashion and style while being overtly kitsch. Jessie’s artworks are lush with fashion and symbolism. This is a common style of art which is created whenever a culture or class has an excess of wealth, there is a return to an overbearing, ornate, staged and narcissistic style. Fashion photography and Rococo or Baroque styles are both very imaginative and create a world that is void of anything plain or worrying. They usually depict only the height of happiness and ecstasy. These inherent styles formed during excess wealth usually focuses on the objects and surroundings of the individuals, whereas art created during times of hardship are usually focused on the individual, or the loss of the individual. This style of art is about creating an image of conspicuous consumption, although it can easily be criticized for being too superficial and of poor taste.
For the “Black Out” exhibition Jessie draped the rooms and models in silver and reflective gear, eerily similar to Andy Warhol’s Factory.
“It was the perfect time to think silver. Silver was the future, it was spacey—the astronauts wore silver suits... And silver was also the past—the Silver Screen—Hollywood actresses photographed in silver sets.And maybe more than anything, silver was narcissism—mirrors were backed with silver.”
- Andy Warhol
Jesse loves this idea of Andy Warhol, and he wants to embody the same cool and calm appeal. In an interview he was asked:
“If you had the opportunity to meet any artist dead or alive, who would it be and why?
Willesee replied: “Andy Warhol, because I’d want to get an Instagram with him.”
Rooms were left completely dark and the scenes were shot with the flash by the public, creating a hypnotizing effect.
Personally I believe this work resonates with Jeff Koon’s paintings of blow up animals.
Both works have a reflective quality which becomes a metaphor for the attraction of advertising in contemporary consumer culture, and the fake charm of fashion.
The ‘Pass Out’ exhibition (which allowed the audience to engage with “passed out” models) is where we see the symbolism of objects that transcends the purpose of the actual object.
A good example of this is the red cup.
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| Pictured: the Ominous Red cup |
The red cup has become not just a symbol of something which holds a liquid, but one that holds alcohol. Furthermore they are not only associated with alcohol but parties, in particular wild parties, and the lifestyle that goes with it. We see this association in other forms of media, especially in Films; to name a few: Project X, American Pie and Road Trip.
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| Poster from the Film 'Project X' |
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| Image from 'Blackout' Exhibition |
Jesse’s seven hundred photos events (these include ‘passout’ ‘blackout’ and ‘flash mob’) are basically a cookie cutter style that any theme can be applied to, but fundamentally they all rely on the audience creating the their own artworks from them. Amateurism and the hobbyist becomes fresh competition for the artist, because how can someone continue to paint or take photos if the technology is available to everyone? With this technology everyone can become an 'artist'.
Artists like Miranda July found an answer, which was to include the audience within the work, making it available for interaction. By doing so the works demand to be photographed, the artist does not create a 'work' but provides the environment for the viewer to become part of the work.
This assertion can be backed when we know that the majority of people who attended Jesse Willesee’s exhibitions are photographers, and the exhibitions have been described as a ‘photographer’s wet dream.’
on this matter Willesee says
“I realized everyone had a camera and nothing to shoot. That’s where the idea for Seven Hundred Photos started.”
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| Pictured: Miranda July |
These artworks allow the viewer to become the artist and make choices, as they can photograph whatever they like. They must make choices of what is included and therefore important and what isn't.
Audience interaction is a very important part of his work, because they ultimately decide how it is recreated, as these exhibitions begin to feed the very sources of inspiration that they derive from.
For example after the photographers go home they will upload these photos to social media, and the cycle will begin again.
A big part of our world today is customization and individualization, and these works feed the audience's desire to become a part of this. It also feeds the desire for mass consumption as well as mass production of cultural symbols on Social networks. An added benefit to audience involvement becomes self promoting, because photographers will after the exhibition show their peers the photos they took, thus indirectly promoting the artist.
These interactive exhibitions begin to create a strange dynamic, and we see this dynamic in my favorite photos from these exhibitions; the ones that show not only the model but the photographer. Usually those images show the photographer dressed quite modestly in contrast with the model who dons fashionable attire and pose ironically for the camera. These photos I believe reveal the separation between the real and the fake. They revealthe difference between the model and the everyday person; the viewed from the viewer.
These photographs expose the boundaries that surround our idea of fashion, and the absurdity of this relationship.
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| Image source: http://jessewilleseestolemycamera.tumblr.com/ |
Where does the world that Jesse Willesee creates exist?
It exists only in the view of the camera and in our understanding of the rules governing the idea of the popular and fashion. I believe these photographs expose the way popular culture works. It is a conceptual fabrication of depth and the popular through symbolism.
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