Gia de Leo is a
pseudonym, a museum guard, a student of cultural history and theory. Based in
Berlin, she is currently writing a master thesis on the viral images of Alan
Kurdi - the three-year-old Syrian boy of Kurdish ethnic background whose image
made global headlines after he drowned on 2 September 2015 in the Mediterranean
Sea, as part of the Syrian refugee crisis.
Gia de Leo
(GdL): I would prefer to say I am creating digital images not art works. Maybe
it is art. Maybe not. That’s in the eye of the viewer.
iskm: How did
you come to utilize collage?
Some years ago I
wanted to remix digital reproductions of artworks but most of them were not
available or difficult to find online. So I started to make collages out of my
art and images from my book collection … But after a while I was sad over my
book destruction and wanted to keep them, stopped and dumped all collages.
So I started to
remix digital works. I play with those tiny images by using reproductions of
some successful artists, remixing them with their own works or unknown artists,
memes, news images, my own photographs or whatever appears on my screen. It
feels much better as I am not destroying anything “real”.
iskm: As you
talk about remixing images, can you speak to the role of (or your perspective
on) appropriation in the context of remixing?
GdL: Generally
this expansion of the realm of imaginary and reality amazes and scares me.
Image overflow. Image saturation. The belief in the authenticity of photography
is fading. Everything is speeding up. Most images live only for a short breath.
We are breathing images as air, consuming them. But they do not disappear.
iskm: Imagery as a form of ‘net art’?
GdL: Net art or
better net images fascinate me because of their accessibility to anyone with an internet connection. Free from traditional art institutions and the art market
everyone can nowadays declare himself as an artist. New social communities are
formed opening up new image or art worlds and markets. For me questions arise
like: Do memes have a more visual and sometimes even political power than
images of artworks? Why are images of artworks more copyright protected than
images of dead refugee children? What is the difference between a regular
image, a meme or an image of an artwork? When is a selfie an artwork? Who defines what art is online? Does
the question what art is still matter online? Is the author now finally dead?
Who cares?
iskm: And now we all appropriate the imagery …
GdL: Yes,
anarchist appropriation is happening constantly. Kill your idols and kill
yourself. If one would see my remixes separated from each other one could not
tell who did it. I am using other online platforms to publish other kinds of
remixes. Maybe you could identify the Picasso or the Warhol used but not the
author as they all vary in their imagery. Memes have for me in this sense of
the dead or killed author a role model function even if some of them lack any
political correctness and of course too many people are excluded from this
development, as they have no access at all.
 |
| Gia de Leo's collage $3,346,456 |
GdL: Homeless
Thomas W. died on the 16th of January 2016 from exposure at Kurfürstendamm, the
main shopping street in Berlin. Next to him they found his shopping cart filled
with personal items. People described him as a very friendly person. I read
about his story in the newspaper and immediately started to mix all available
kinds of images in my mind on the screen of my smartphone.
iskm: Did you
know him?
GdL: I did not
know Thomas W. personally but daily I meet homeless people. My father was a
homeless alcoholic for some time too. Back then I was twelve years old, I cared
but could not help. Maybe that is why my reaction was so impulsively emotional.
iskm: How did
you make the collage? What are the source images and why did you select them?
GdL: When I
thought of Thomas W., the shopping mall, his shopping cart simultaneously
artworks appeared in my mind like Duane Hanson’s sculpture Supermarket Lady
(1979), Sylvie Fleury’s empty, gold-plated shopping cart and Doug Aitken’s work
with the shopping cart standing there lost and alone on the roof of a park
deck. Consumerism, supermarket and this simple thing of a shopping cart, which
is functioning in different kinds of meanings and markets were a link between
my very spontaneous image selection. And of course Andreas Gursky is a star in
the contemporary “supermarket of art“. His photograph 99 Cent (2001) of a
supermarket sold with a price of $3,346,456 at a Christie’s auction, becoming
one of the most expensive photographs. I titled my remix after the price of
Gurskys work. In total contrast my remix is a cheap digital image, not
available for sale, shared with everybody, produced in an hour on a smart
phone, a remix in low resolution. If you print it you maybe see nothing
anymore. It may disappear.
iskm: Why Kate
Moss?
GdL: The
photograph of Kate Moss shopping in her bikini reminds me somehow in her almost
flying movement with the swinging ponytail of the “ninfa fiorentina“ in the
painting “The Birth of John the Baptist” (1485-1490) by
Domenico Ghirlandaio. Aby Warburg described her as an ‘ecstatic nymph’. In my
image, Kate Moss is compared to the most homeless people, who are wandering
through the cities wrapped in many layers of clothes in the winter time,
wearing a bikini, skinny, having her shopping cart filled with consumer goods.
A symbol of the easy breezy sunny side of shopping life. A real model who gets
paid for professional shootings, to inspire people to consume. An icon in many
senses, but also for the insatiable consumerism of images.
iskm: Which
photographers/artists would you most want to most see involved in
ishotkatemoss?
GdL: Those who
inspire me are and will be part of my remixes. Regular images and images of
artworks by people and artists.
I have mentioned
others that inspired me for this image, but also I greatly respect the
photography project ”Sycamore and Romaine“ by Martin Schoeller. He portraits
homeless people with dignity by giving them back identities and telling their
stories. Nobody needs to be ashamed to be homeless. A society who is not able
to provide free housing and financial aid for the poor and troubled could be.
Isn’t it absurd or even perverted that image stock markets like Getty print
their logo and the name of photographers on images of homeless people - while
the people “the models“ stay anonymous? They stay poor and homeless while
others are profiting. It just feels wrong to me.
And to us too. Even though it underlies and is inherent in every aspect of the www.ishotkatemoss.com project - which now includes Gia de Leo's digital collage with Thomas W. - we have recently not spent a great deal of time reflecting on pure commercialization behind the use of images. Of course, kate is our metaphor for this and we felt that highlighting $3,346,456 and the ideas behind it were critically important. You can see more of Gia de Leo's socially conscious work on instagram.
And to us too. Even though it underlies and is inherent in every aspect of the www.ishotkatemoss.com project - which now includes Gia de Leo's digital collage with Thomas W. - we have recently not spent a great deal of time reflecting on pure commercialization behind the use of images. Of course, kate is our metaphor for this and we felt that highlighting $3,346,456 and the ideas behind it were critically important. You can see more of Gia de Leo's socially conscious work on instagram.
Observe. Slow Down. Shoot. Submit