Kathrin Hoyos

about the artist

, Deutschland

Conceptual photographer Kathrin Hoyos makes Barbie the protagonist of her photo series #me, in which she vividly illustrates this connection of recent lifestyle standards, consumer culture and the media conditions of paradoxical social media individuality. As alive as she may seem to us after decades of presence, Barbie remains a doll with a preformed smile, made of plastic and with stiff limbs, who knows exactly: if you want to attract envious glances today, you can no longer score points with a convertible, brand-name accessories and long legs in a miniskirt alone. As a true jet-set girl, Barbie collects likes and followers today - whether in Cape Town, Monte Carlo, Paris, Venice or Vienna - with her arm outstretched in a selfie pose. The instagrammed top sights of the globe, the experiences and events of our exciting lives, are the lifestyle currency of the present. Through Barbie as a means of representation, the artist, who lives in South Africa and Monaco, succeeds in creating a thoroughly uncomfortable reminiscence of the mechanical willingness with which we submit to the principles of self-dramatization and a reminder of the corruptibility of our senses through the depiction of seemingly unique dream beaches, landmarks, mountain views, and encounters for which we in reality have to queue en masse shamelessly.