I entered Joana Schneider’s life-sized universe like a Polly Pocket doll. With her installation of reusable materials, the artist casts a critical eye on artificial, plastic life and the current beauty ideals.
‘If you know who she is, it’s time for Botox’ is the cynical title of the solo exhibition at Rademakers Gallery from 1 June to 22 July 2023. Polly Pockets appeared on the market for the first time in 1989. With their plastic clothes, the plastic-dressing dolls live a plastic life in a plastic suitcase in screaming, artificial colors in the form of a heart, shell, pineapple, or flamingo.
The toy became a rage among young children. Joana Schneider transforms this artificial mini-Polly Pocket world into a new universe: a life-sized installation consisting of an iconic heart-shaped Polly Pocket house in which you can walk around and discover the toy lifestyle life made by Schneider. She crafted a collection of beautiful handmade clothes and accessories from discarded ropes and leftovers, the same materials that have been her artistic medium since graduation. She asks the question: how do toys influence our perception of ourselves?
New Life
This solo exhibition might be her most critical one yet. However, Schneider has previously expressed her opinion against the disappearance of traditional crafts such as thatching, stitching with reed, and rope-making, which she revives in her own work in a new, more labor-intensive way. The artist also repeatedly demonstrates that we throw away valuable materials. At the same time, she gives old fishing ropes and remnant fabrics a beautiful and unique new life.
In stark contrast to Schneider’s artworks and installations, Polly Pocket stands for a generation, which the artist herself is part of, ranging in age from 25 to 45 years old, and which grew up with fast fashion and toys made of artificial materials in loud, cheesy colors. It is also an Instagram generation that acquires the latest trends via videos about lip fillers and Botox, and for whom this seems to be as natural as it was before to go to the nail salon or stick on fake eyelashes.
Whereas you used to go to the hairdresser or the manicurist, now Botox is the omnipresent new way to often already look younger, smoother, younger and more beautiful at a young age. Botox and plastic surgery to look prettier are so far from me; I limit myself to more innocent ways to make myself look prettier: make-up and dyeing my hair.
Joana Schneider
Joana and her sister Leonie – also an artist at Rademakers Gallery – often amuse themselves by sending memes to each other. ‘If you know who she is, it’s time for Botox,’ the cynically intended meme that Joana sent to Leonie led to the definite idea for her solo exhibition. “I feel like I have to say something about it and do something about it because I find it a worrying development,” Schneider says. “Whereas you used to go to the hairdresser or the manicurist, now Botox is the omnipresent new way too often already look younger, smoother, younger, and more beautiful at a young age. Botox and plastic surgery to look prettier are so far from me; I limit myself to more innocent ways to make myself look prettier: make–up and dyeing my hair,” she says. The worrying and critical look led to researching how people look at themselves, for which she hasn’t yet found the answers.
Specifically, we will discuss how toys (and the industry behind them) influence our perception of ourselves. Why does Generation X want to ‘funky‘ themselves so that the emotions they ultimately communicate are entirely flattened out? she asks herself. And what effect does that have on our society? She hopes that the captivating experience of ‘If you know who this is, it‘s time for Botox‘ will trigger a discussion on this current topic, especially among the younger generation.
‘If you know who this is, it’s time for Botox,’ a solo exhibition by Joana Schneider,
Rademakers Gallery from 1 June to 22 July 2023.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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