Daniela Rossell, Untitled (Rich and famous), 1999

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Un tímido múltiple mostraba originalmente las fotos que componían la primera serie de fotografías del proyecto “Ricas y famosas” de Daniela Rossell en 1993. Unidas por un tornillo y una cadenita que las hacía lucir como un llavero, las fotografías encapsuladas en plástico, imágenes de un kitsch nacional inédito, ironizaban en el objeto mismo que las contenía sobre los símbolos de la opulencia nacional pre-TLC que mostraban las imágenes: trofeos en forma de propiedades decoradas como escenarios de barrocas telenovelas, pieles y animales exóticos disecados y expuestos de modos improbables, mujeres que juegan con su status artificial, a la vez infantilizado e hiper-sexualizado, de muñecas, “representándose a sí mismas” como anunciaba Rossell a partir de exposiciones posteriores de la famosa serie.

No sabemos hasta qué punto estas mujeres –amigas de la artista, hijas y esposas de políticos priistas como Rossell describe en entrevista con el SFMOMA en 2015– se autoparodian o expresan con sinceridad su participación voluntaria en el sistema de opresión a todas luces corrupta que hacía su riqueza posible. La ambigüedad de las imágenes lleva a Olivier Debroise a calificarlas de anómalas, y es que no logramos decifrar cómo debemos ubicarnos con respecto a ellas, sus sujetos, y lo que éstos provocan en nosotros: incredulidad, escarnio, admiración a la artista por hacer de un modo tan sincero algo tan extraño y provocativo que la implicaba a ella misma, perplejidad ante la igual medida de sueño, pesadilla y realidad que estas mordaces imágenes muestran.

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A modest multiple originally showed the photos that made up the first series of Daniela Rossell's "Rich and Famous" project in 1993. Joined by a screw and a small chain, the photographs encapsulated in plastic exhibited the images of the rich peoples kitsch, mocking their fake grandeur in the very object used to exhibit them: a keychain.

The images showed a picture of Mexican pre-NAFTA opulence: trophy-property decorated like sets from baroque soap operas, skins and dissected exotic animals exposed in improbable ways; women who played with their artificial status, simultaneously infantilized and hyper-sexualized, dolls "representing themselves" as Rossell announced in subsequent exhibitions of the famous series. We do not know to what extent these women - friends of the artist, daughters and wives of PRI politicians as Rossell described in an interview with the SFMOMA in 2015 - self-parody or sincerely express their voluntary participation in the clearly corrupt system of oppression that made their wealth possible. The ambiguity of the images lead Olivier Debroise to classify them as “anomalous”, and that’s precisely why we cannot decipher how we should locate ourselves with respect to them, their subjects, and what these provoke in us: disbelief, derision, admiration for the artist for making in such a sincere way something so strange and provocative that implicated her, perplexity at the equal measure of dream, nightmare and reality that these biting images show.

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“The concept of the “anomalous” does not really work as an artistic category, since it ceases to exist as soon as it is identified and creates a movement, but the idea fits few artists as well as it does Daniela Rossell and Miguel Ventura. Rossell’s maniera–to use a particularly apt term from the Baroque–especially distinguishes her work from that of her colleagues. The photography project she titled Ricas y famosas (Rich and Famous), begun in 1993-1994 as a multiple to be sold at Temístocles 44, became a media scandal in 2002: it not only exposed the lifestyles of the Mexican elite, but explored feminine identity with a sharp ironic sense. In many cases, the satirical aspect of the work was a product of the intervention of the subjects, who used Rossell to stage their own fantasies and ridicule the material delirium of the domestic spaces paid for by parents or husbands.“

Debroise, Olivier, and Universidad Nacional Autónoma De México. Museo Universitario De Ciencias Y Arte. La Era De La Discrepancia : Arte Y Cultura Visual En México, 1968-1997 / Con Textos De Olivier Debroise ... [et Al.] ; Editado Por Olivier Debroise ; [traducción, Joëlle Rorive Y Ricardo Vinós, James Oles] = The Age of Discrepancies : [art and Visual Culture in Mexico, 1968-1997] /. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma De México, 2007. P. 423

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“The rooms in the homes she photographs are fantastic assemblages of art and kitsch. Siqueiros paintings and African sculptures mix with ceramic blackamoors and stuffed animals, some of them taxidermic specimens, some of them toys. Antique Indian gowns hang as if crucified over a couch in one sitting room. Pet dogs mate in a colonial-style private chapel. The women who live here appear in nearly every picture, many gowned, coiffured and posed as if for a Pedro Almodóvar film.

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Were images like this one meant as social documents or social commentary? Portraits or caricatures? The answer is unclear, and the fact that the women in many of the photographs are friends and relatives of the photographer further complicates speculation. At least three things are certain, though. Ms. Rossell is a sharp artist with a cinematic eye and a flair for provocation. Equivalent rich-and-famous subjects can be found in any culture. (She has already done a New York series titled ''Olympic Tower.'') And most of her sitters come across as so revolting that you can't help wondering why popular uprisings aren't happening every day.”

Holland Cotter

See this text in its original context, in The New York Times