Virtual Beauty

Today, technology allows us to be more self-aware and calculated in the way we present ourselves publicly than ever before. A new generation now comes of age who have never lived in a world where the idea of digital self-curation has not been a facet of their everyday lives. Questions of beauty are inherent to the proliferation of portable devices and screens on which people look at themselves and share these curated identities with the world. 

From social media filters and dating apps to artificial intelligence to biometrics, this exhibition examines the impact of the latest digital technologies on the definition of beauty and how they radically transform our notions of identity, gender, sexuality, and race. Wandering between the virtual and physical, the fantastical and the dystopian, the artists presented in this exhibition question what beauty looks like today, inviting us to reconsider the very definition of human identity in the post-internet era. 

Featured artists: Anan Fries, Andrew Thomas Huang, Angelfire, Amalia Ulman, Aleksander Nærbø, Ben Cullen Williams and Isamaya Ffrench, Bunny Kinney, Frederik Heyman, Harriet Davey, Hyungkoo Lee, Ines Alpha, Minne Atairu, ORLAN, Sin Wai Kin, Lil Miquela, Arvida Byström, M.C. Abbott, María Buey González and Carl Olsson, Filip Ćustić, Michael Wallinger, Qualeasha Wood

The exhibition, a project initiated by HEK (House of Electronic Arts, Basel), is co-curated by Gonzalo Herrero Delicado, Mathilde Friis, Bunny Kinney and supported by Claire Catterall, Senior Curator at Somerset House.

From gender nonconformity and alternate sexual identities to sex work and drag culture, all these realms are often considered disruptions existing outside the hegemonic order. In her seminal 1966 title Purity and Danger, anthropologist Mary Douglas explored how societies define and regulate concepts of purity and impurity, drawing distinctions between what is considered clean or dirty, sacred or profane, pure or dangerous. At the core of her theory is the idea that any disruption to order—a "matter out of place"—is perceived as open, excessive, and fluid.​​While art and sex are often shaped by similar forces of commodification and labour, they are typically viewed as opposites or confronted, with one regarded as sacred and the other as taboo. However, expressions of sexuality and creativity have long been deeply intertwined. This exhibition explores that connection, presenting a selection of works that reimagine notions of purity and danger, embracing fluidity and openness as essential facets of the human experience.

An evening with filmmaker, performer, and artist Vex Ashley as she explores the captivating intersection of art and pornography through a presentation of her 10 years of artistic practice, including recent installation Internal Desire Machines at Working Girls, Gallery 46 and screening of some of their influential work. 

Vex Ashley, the creative mind behind the innovative independent production studio Four Chambers, has consistently pushed the boundaries of visual storytelling by challenging traditional perceptions of adult content. Through her artistic lens, she uses pornography as the medium, integrating art, philosophy, and human sexuality.

Vex Ashley is a porn performer, director, editor and producer. She heads Four Chambers, a pornography project exploring the intersection between sex, psychology, technology and art history and everything else. After rejecting being demoted to "muse" from spending 3 years at art school and getting naked online as a cam girl, Vex started making work as Four Chambers to expand the idea of what sex on film could say, do and be. She speaks, writes and spends a lot of time online talking about creative and independent porn making, sex as performance, authenticity, art and pornography, technology and sex, camming and censorship.

 The group exhibition WORKING GIRLS! examines the intersection between contemporary art practice and the sex industry. The artists in this exhibition explore various aspects of the sex industry in their work, including fetishisation, gender and sexuality, kink, desire, fantasy, community, and friendship. Their artistic practices span multiple mediums, from textile and photography, to painting and film. This exhibition aims to challenge established societal norms by addressing the stigma often faced by sex workers, encouraging the audience to reflect on the boundaries between art, sex, labour, and the market. 

The exhibition title references the eponymous film from 1986 by Lizzie Borden, and the recent book by Sophia Giovannitti Working Girl: On Selling Art and Selling Sex (Verso, 2023). In her book, Giovannitti argues that art and sex occupy similar positions under capitalism, being deemed inappropriate for commodification. Despite this, both are lucrative industries founded on the commodification of creativity, desire, authenticity, performativity, and intimacy. 

WORKING GIRLS! was accompanied by a public programme curated in collaboration with Lover Management Ltd. expanding on the themes in the exhibition. Including a live performance by Mercedes666, workshop led by AJ Bravo, an artist talk with Modest Gold, AJ Bravo, M.J. McAlpine and Mercedes666.

This project is part of a practice-based PhD research initiated by Mathilde Friis in 2022 as part of the Visual and Material Culture Department at Northumbria University. The exhibition is made possible with support from the FADSS Research Support Fund from Northumbria University.

Technology today allows us to be more self-aware and calculated in how we present ourselves publicly than ever before. A new generation now comes of age who have never lived in a world where the idea of digital self-curation has not been a facet of their everyday lives. Questions of beauty are inherent to the proliferation of portable devices and screens on which people look at themselves and share these curated identities with the world.

From social media filters and dating apps to artificial intelligence to biometrics, Virtual Beauty examines the impact of the latest digital technologies on the definition of beauty and how they radically transform our notions of gender, sexuality, race, and identity. Wandering between the virtual and physical, the artists presented in this exhibition question what beauty is today, inviting us to reconsider the very definition of human identity in the post-internet era.

Featured artists: Ines Alpha, Angelfire, Arvida Byström, GERIKO with Juno Calypso, Filip Ćustić, Harriet Davey, Anan Fries, Maria Guta, Frederik Heyman, Andrew Thomas Huang, Hyphen-Labs, Keiken, Bunny Kinney, Lil Miquela, Aleksander Nærbø, ORLAN, Daniel Sannwald and Beauty_GAN, Simon Senn, Michael Wallinger, Ben Cullen Williams and Isamaya Ffrench.

The exhibition was supported by Dr. Georg und Josi Guggenheim Stiftung, Landis & Gyr Stiftung, Migros Kulturprozent, Stanley Thomas Johnson.

‘Sketches’ is the first solo show of Venezuelan artist Isabella Benshimol. This site-specific project showcases a novel compilation of photographs taken daily by the artist with her phone between 2019 and 2023, presented alongside a selection of sculptures. The daily ritual of undressing, often in the intimacy of her domestic space, becomes a performance documented here through the ‘sketches’ traced by the artist's underwear casually left on the floor. 

The abstractions of these intimate garments are presented decontextualised from her body. As a matter out of place, the project unfolds in an empty office space in central London - a sterile and predominantly male-dominated environment. Here, ideas surrounding femininity and intimacy contrast with the sense of order, raising questions about power dynamics between the domestic and the corporate.

What is the zeitgeist of our age? More than any other time in history, we live in a permanent state of flux where the contexts we inhabit evolve at a pace we can barely keep up with. Our experiences are marked by contradictory feelings from the multiple events and realities that shape our daily lives. This exhibition presents works by four artists traversing between the hopeful and the fearful, the physical and the virtual, to reflect on the often polarised experiences, emotions and reactions that come out of these simultaneous realities.

Today's era of digital transience has transformed how these artists reflect the world around them, a world they describe through personal narratives based on intimate visions and memories of their past, present and near future. As the title suggests, these works evoke a shared sense of naive fragility and dark nostalgia for a time that is now gone or maybe the artists have never known. The works in this exhibition embody a sense of anxiety, permanent self-exploration and the notion of coming of age in a post-internet reality - an age that is defined by instability and rapid changes.