Beauty is embarrassing

K-Pop diva

LA socialite

NY media mogul

Yeah, I watched the Wayne White documentary recently and really enjoyed it. The artist used the phrase "Beauty is Embarrassing" in one of his word paintings and explained how beauty so often makes us feel embarrassed. So true. Photoshop retouching is an embarrassing phenomenon. Trained artists cover up and blur out the bits of human anatomy that make us uncomfortable: armpits, blemishes, cellulite, whatever. This is done to pretty much all editorial photographs, and it's not just that they cover shit up, they shift, squeeze and manipulate things to make for a hotter bod or more sculpted visage. 

This is strange and fascinating. In some respects it's morally abhorrent. These images are presented as photographs, documentation of an actual person and event, but they've been manipulated beyond the facts and often beyond the actual capabilities of the human anatomy. And then little girls say "Why don't I look like that, no matter how much I try?" and then little boys say "Why don't you look like that?" It's kinda sad.       

Anyhow, my beautiful friends Ruth Yoo, Annelise Hewit and Julia Thompson were nice enough to let me digitally manipulate them. So now we get to see what they'd look like with extensive plastic surgery (I guess photoshop aint all bad). They are titled: K-Pop Diva, LA Socialite and NY Media Mogul. 

 I'd like to have these made into lenticular prints, because GIFs seem to be the lenticular prints of the 2000s. Maybe mounted on some light boxes or with some little plastic frames. I have a couple lenticular prints of Jesus and Mary from the 1940s, that I hold dear to my heart. They're blinking and shifting their hands around, Mary has a lot of make-up on and neatly pencilled eyebrows. I've been thinking on this idea for a while, so hopefully more on this soon.