Inhaltsbereich
excerpt from the catalogue
"The Aesthetics of Terror", Charta Art Books, Milano, 2009 - pg. 18
Ivana Spinelli takes the notion of "terrorist chic" (...) in her Global Sisters: Series 2 (2008). In these drawings and paintings, Barbie-like glamour figures hold hands, don gas masks and hoods, and strike coquettish poses with suicide belts and hand grenades strapped across their otherwise nude bodies.
Spinelli feels that the codes or stereotypes that fashion employs to represent women are linked to the codes with which the media represents war and terror, a connection that serves to link desire and fear.
The use of stereotype, of course, blocks complexity; it is intended for easy consumptionabsorb the idea and move on or, as Spinelli says, "we use empty shapes to fill them with fast understanding about world". Using photographs taken from the web or newspapers and copying the poses, Spinelli has generated an archive of the new female warrior, without a context, without narrative, just the silent white background of the paper on which they are drawn. Spinelli likens this silent blankness to Naomi Klein´s scenario of the psychic shock that envelops a poulation following a traumatic disaster- be it war or a natural calamity. Capitalizing on this collective shock, the government can suspend civil rights to establish a new economic or social system without opposition, a scenario which came only to real in the violation of so many protections and rights in the aftermath of 9/11. Spinelli bolsters her branding of these global pin-ups in bright headlines, marketing them through dolls, tote bags, posters, and books, because, in pink, "everything becomes fascinating".
Manon Slome
-independent curator and writer living in New York City-