REHAB!

19 Jan 2008
10 Mar 2008

REHAB is a project about a notorious recent phenomenon: the worldwide media hype surrounding public figures like Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Pete Doherty. People we have come to associate with the vapidity and emptiness of contemporary life. Nonetheless, they grace the covers of glossy magazines almost daily, and have even invaded the serious media. Is this just one of the traits of an aggressive omniscient media industry or something closer to a modern morality tale?

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Paris Hilton by: Nick Ût, 2007 -

REHAB consists of a variety of objects, a book and a poster campaign by Ben Laloua / Didier Pascal. The exhibition also presents work by Christian Jankowski and Meiro Koizumi.

Photographer Nick Ût, who in June 2007 captured a sobbing Paris Hilton on her way to prison, took the famous photograph of the Vietnamese girl fleeing naked from a napalm attack exactly 35 years earlier. All that unites the two images is a weeping woman, without which the photographs are poles apart. The 1972 photo came to symbolise American defeat in Vietnam, while the mug shot of Paris is a portrait of interminable vapidity.