On Beguiling Prettiness: A Critique
It’s no coincidence that the series focuses on young ladies eating cake, but it’s also no accident that several of the photos show them eating cake in the bathroom.
As Chicago enters the deep freeze, Kristen Flemington thaws us by her hearth. Her contribution to the Galerie, “Belmont Dormatory [sic] for Exceptional Young Ladies,” is all warmth and feminine sensuousness; a fantasy of innocence, the series is a welcome reprieve—and there is, thankfully, not a ski jacket in sight.
To be sure, Flemington’s oneiric world is a seductive construction. Every girl – or, rather, every young lady – dons a skirt and a cardigan; and a pair of stockings, a pair of heels, and a pearl necklace wait, it seems, to be pulled tenderly from each girl’s nymphic skin. The rule is retro-’60s-coed, and the dainty birds of The Bell Jar flutter to mind. From beginning to end, the color palette is pastel, with pinks and soft browns dominating. Backgrounds are held in a soft focus, while high-key lighting frames the young ladies’ perfectly dolled-up faces. One recalls the ethereal prettiness of a Sofia Coppola movie, especially The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette. The “B.D.E.Y.L.” shares the same candy-coated, womanly aesthetic that both indulges in and ironically questions what we view as “feminine pleasures”: it’s no coincidence that the series focuses on young ladies eating cake, but it’s also no accident that several of the photos show them eating cake in the bathroom.
Although it’s easy to get caught up in the blue-eyed, red-lipped dreaminess of the “B.D.E.Y.L.,” we mustn’t forget that Flemington’s creation is also a tease. The cardiganed young ladies may look longingly off to the side of the camera or gaze directly, flirtatiously, into it, but the photographer always seems to be winking. Yes, the mise-en-scène is frilly and girly and just oh-so-delicate, but this is faux-naïveté. The handwritten cards replete with misspellings (some acknowledged, some not), the store-bought cake, the “candid” poses—these are deliberate choices that cannot be taken at face value. The photographs are coded as innocent, but they are not authentic documents of innocence. Between the producers and consumers of fantasy, there always exists an amount of pretense: you know it’s fake, and I know it’s fake, but for just a moment let’s pretend otherwise. In these images, Flemington underlines this playful compact and stretches it to its breaking point. An overabundance of cues tells you that this is “just pretend.” But do you choose to play the game and pretend and maybe have a little fun anyway? Can we have our cake and eat it, too?
Make-believe can be a seductive game, but ultimately the fact that we know it all to be make-believe ruins the illusion. Perhaps in this sense, Flemington’s work shares something in common with Cindy Sherman’s early Untitled Film Stills. These “Chicagoettes” may be playing dress-up, but rest assured the indulgence is ironic; if not quite camp, it is equally self-aware.
