Mighty Beauty, Mighty Beast
Curated by Paul Carey-Kent, Co-curated by Jolanda Crettaz Chandler
Mighty Beauty, Mighty Beast is a show combined from paintings, animation and an installation. It is a depiction of contemporary beauty cannon that appears in social media and fashion magazines. Exaggerated vision of women: a melt-down of fashion melds with the animal in what could be a serious critique of consumerism and social media, or just the poking of a little gentle fun…
Text written by Paul Carey-Kent, Cheatahs
What are they about, these paintings of exaggerated women in which a melt-down of fashion melds with the animal? Is ‘Mighty Beauty, Mighty Beast’ a serious critique of consumerism and social media, or is Anna Pogudz just poking a little gentle fun? Is she in the tradition of Alex Katz’s painterly pop, or might we do better to look to fellow Pole Natalia LL’s still-pertinent 1970’s deconstructions of the nature of consumer desire? It soon becomes obvious that we can play it either way. It’s like getting the pictures from the celebrity-worshipping magazine Hello in an edition The Society of the Spectacle.