Entartainment
Entartainment #1
Performative photography
Mary Sue, 2022
In these works, Mary Sue investigates her singular “inverted autofictions” by turning to classic female figures from literary texts, TV, and cartoons. These perfect, iconic characters, which have defined the imaginations of countless generations of girls and have contributed to the construction of the Western female self-image, end up caught in a self-inflicted “pie-in-the-face” predicament. Unperturbed—as they are beautiful superheroines and/or fashion plates—they seem to enjoy being covered in cream no less than living out their picture-perfect destinies.
Entartainment #2
Performative photography
Mary Sue, 2022
The entartainment series aligns like targets taken under the fire of a throw of cream pies, the female heroines who constitute our common culture. These female figures built us, were models and their story continues to put children to sleep even today.
They are "Classics" and by definition do not adapt to the evolution and emancipation of contemporary women who in fact always keep one foot in the past. If criticism and mockery are evident in this series, the image is treated in such a way as to perpetuate the aesthetic influence that these female fictional figures infuse again and again.
Entartainment #2, #4
Performative photography
Mary Sue, 2022
Entartainment #5
Performative photography
Mary Sue, 2022
To create this series of performance photos, treated and composed like classic portrait paintings, a complex process had to be put in place. It is indeed Mary Sue who photographs herself and self-pies. The shots taken before, during and after the action thus make it possible to obtain an ambiguous result between what the background tells and what the form shows.
Entartainment #6
Performative photography
Mary Sue, 2022
Entartainment #7, #8
Performative photography
Mary Sue, 2022
The final image is the result of a rigorous and meticulously controlled assembly of the time of the photographic performance, thus making it possible to concentrate in a single photograph the perfect image of the heroine and its opposite, stained by the cream and the shards of pie that explode like a jubilant firework in the picture.
They remain beautiful, smiling, calm. Their eyes are wide open, looking towards the future that the tale has in store for them.
Entartainment #9
Performative photography
Mary Sue, 2022