American Beauties

When I heard that we will go to see an exhibition named „American Beauties“, I did not really know what to expect – perhaps some pictures and paintings dealing with the beauty of American landscape as it was described in Moon Palace and has been shown in Easy Rider or perhaps some other kind of American beauty.

Arriving I saw my expextations fulfilled partly. There were pretty pictures of American landscape made by Wim Wenders I think. One of these was a picture of a room with a sofa in the middle with a huge painting of landscape above and a Coca Cola refrigerator next to it. This is the one I found suitable for my expectations mentioned above and the one I liked best. There was a beautiful atmosphere which springs from this picture.

But there were not only nice objects like the one mentioned above. I also had to make out that I could have understood the title in a wrong way or rather the title has a double entendre. When I look back on the the exhibition I remember more exhibits which showed a bad or cruel content like some pictures of Larry Clark and Nan Goldin. So in a way the title is meant ironically because I think if one hears the term American beauties, he does not think of drug addicts or women having black eyes. Nevertheless the title fits well because it shows us that there is not only the good and perfect world. Artists like Larry Clark showed us this „not-only-good-world“ in a shocking picture series. In this series there was one picture that shocked me most. A drug addicted man had a commissure around his whole arm. It looked really cruel.

In my opinion this series of pictures was most interesting because it showed a life in stages and how drugs destroyed it when I understood it right. Nevertheless this series fits well to the ironically meant title „American Beauties“.