Women

In some ways, it almost seems logical that cosmetic surgery would emerge in the 90s as a full-blown art medium. Identity politics set the conceptual stage, portraiture remains a transfixing genre, surgical technology keeps getting better, body modification has become culturally accepted: why not turn one’s own face into a canvas? So far, at least three women have done just that, establishing themselves as a first generation of plastic surgery artist: One of them is French performance artist Orlan (pictured, right), turning her face into a collage of famous Western art monuments in a radical, if kind of obvious, critique of patriarchy; Jocelyn Wildenstein, ex-wife of New York gallerist Alec Wildenstein is another, sculpting her face to look more like a cat; and Cindy Jackson (pictured, left), a London-based artist from America, is the third, undergoing over twenty surgical procedures to make her physiognomy more closely resemble that of a Barbie doll, and who now turns out “clones” of herself in the faces of young disciples. Who knows what genres may emerge in the future: the “landscape” face? “Still life” face? “Text-based” face? Let the next wave begin.

Photographs = (left) Cindy Jackson by Cindy Jackson, (right) Orlan by Juergen Teller