American exhibition curator Melissa Harris displayed the works of photographers Elena Dorfman and Jamie Diamond at the Prada Foundation in Milan, which caused a sensation.
Dolls are one of the oldest toys known and have been attracting human imagination for thousands of years. In ancient Egypt, there are records of puppets as early as the 21st century BC, while in Greece, mud puppets can be traced back to at least 200 BC. Of course, dolls are not only children’s toys, but also items with spiritual, family, and supernatural values. This is a fuzzy difference between then and now.
These fuzzy distinctions are explored in an exhibition with “Alternatives for Love” as one of the central themes. At the Prada Foundation in Milan, the exhibition featured 42 works by contemporary American photographers Jamie Diamond and Elena Dorfman, documenting many personal lives-from laywomen artists to sex dolls Lovers, and their emotional investment in sex dolls.
But photographers using dolls as props or subjects are nothing new. In the mid-20th century, Boston artist Morton Bartlett took pictures of plaster dolls, and more recently, Laurie Simmons, Elizabeth Jaeger-LeCoultre, and Ovid Bistowin added It is famous for its human-like portraits.
Exhibition curator Melissa Harris told Vogue: “I like the works of Jamie and Elena because their respective visions and works are full of humanity.” As a contributing editor of the foundation, Harris said The work of these two photographers generated interest and saw an opportunity for them to have a dialogue, “Look at how they contacted each other, what they have in common, and what they have in common in other directions.”
The exhibition includes Diamond’s “Forever Mother” series (2012-2018), which is a group of self-taught female artists’ intimate depictions of “rebirths” who handcraft, collect and interact with ultra-realistic sex dolls. The reasons why these women are so obsessed are different, but they mainly revolve around a kind of “empty nest syndrome.” These photos capture the affectionate moments of the protagonist and their sex dolls, which seem to be a sympathetic and secret depiction. “Working with the team allows me to explore the gray area between reality and technique, where relationships are constructed from inanimate objects,” Diamond said.
In “Nine Months of Rebirth” (2014), the 35-year-old Brooklyn artist uses Cindy Sherman’s own methods to portray himself as the protagonist. This interesting series depicts Diamond wearing a bob wig, walking through various social settings with a sex doll named Annabel: from the terrace of the restaurant to the train and swimming pool. These works are inspired by the artist’s own childhood and are named after her diary. They explore the ways in which girls are socialized in order to construct a specific attitude towards motherhood, and at the same time echo the artist’s research on groups.
At the same time, Los Angeles artist Elena Dorfman focused on the doll as a substitute for romance and sexual partners. In her series “Still Lovers” (2001-2004), the 54-year-old artist records the family lives of men and women who are committed to making life-size and milf sex dolls. “It is fascinating to create it because I have never seen anything like this before,” Dorfman said. “Those who like to use dolls instead of humans are very attractive to me, both then and now.”
Although the photographic works in the exhibition do show deep humanity, there is also a view that they characterize people who are already living on the margins of society. Harris explained: “I am not interested in hyping a topic, exploiting anyone, or further marginalizing groups that are already isolated and judged.” Both artists went deep into their groups, won the trust of the group, and spent a lot of money. Time is with the depicted individual. ”
When our relationship with artificial intelligence technology has attracted unprecedented attention, the alternative to love provides a vision that is both timely and timeless for humans. Although this two-way dialogue appropriately solves the multi-faceted potential of sex dolls as a substitute for emotional attachment, it does not leave much room to fully participate in the dialogue that always exists for future generations. But then again, if a sex doll is used for fun, then it must have ideas as well as fantasy.
