The Fotomuseum in Maastricht is showing a high-profile exhibition by British photographer and filmmaker Alison Jackson. A unique, incisive look at the contemporary celebrity cult and the delicate relationship between privacy and publicity.

Text: Kirstin Hanssen Photography: Alison Jackson

Looking at the work of Alison Jackson (1960), one gets the feeling of being a sneak witness to the juiciest scenes: Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle embroiled in a cat fight, the late Queen Elizabeth with a magazine on the toilet, and Donald Trump in a tantalising rendezvous with Miss Mexico on top of his desk... Jackson's pictures show prima facie celebrities caught during a crucial moment.

However, nothing could be further from the truth. Lookalikes and actors were sought to stage the paparazzi shots and documentary footage. The idea behind it: our society is obsessed with the lives of celebrities. Private lives have become a public media spectacle and consumable product. Is the line between real and staged still relevant? Alison Jackson radically expresses it: "Truth is dead. Nothing we see is reliable. Everything can be fake and nothing is authentic."

Diana's death

Her approach more or less by necessity came about when she studied photography at the Royal College of Art in London, after training in sculpture. "Then Princess Diana died and what happened next baffled me. Why was the world mourning so intensely for someone no one knew personally?

"I prefer real people as lookalikes"

I explored Diana's public and private life, her cat-and-mouse game with the media. I wanted to do something with that. I considered using Mario Testino's iconic portraits of Diana, but the Royal College of Art warned of legal problems. To avoid this, I started with self-portraits, but I was not satisfied and so I used models," Jackson says.

Among other things, it led to an impressive picture of Princess Diana's doppelgangers, Dodi Fayed, and their imaginary love child. "At the time, Diana was in love with Dodi, but was she engaged to him? Was she killed because she was pregnant by an Arab man? Questions that concerned everyone. The photos caused complete uproar.

They even wanted to expel me from school, as ties with the royal family were close. The newspapers eagerly used the series, but at the same time I was heavily criticised. It was a fierce time. Remarkably, the same media later asked me to work for them."

Trump's wig and Kim's buttocks

That first series was followed by many other works that boldly captured not only doppelgangers of members of the British royal family, but also other celebrities. A recurring figure in the work is Donald Trump. Jackson explains, "I am definitely not pro-Trump, but he is a genius when it comes to creating publicity. He doesn't stop spreading bad stories about himself, and he does it on purpose, because that way he always gets attention." The realisation of her work requires a long production time.

"We are obsessed with images"

"It really is a nightmare! Not only do I have to spend months looking for doubles and chasing strangers down the street, but then you're not there yet. Think about the hair, the make-up. For instance, no hair stylist managed to make the wig for 'my' Trump. I had to work on it myself and spent almost a year. Or take for instance Kim Kardashian's buttocks that kept getting bigger. Had to start all over again."

Possessed by images

Besides unctuous photographs, multi-talented Alison Jackson also creates hyper-realistic sculptures of celebrities and also shuns live performances not. In London, she misled countless fans with a staged royal procession, where even the police initially thought they were the real royals and escorted the carriage to just in front of Buckingham Palace.

"No, we were not arrested, we were not doing anything illegal." In New York, 5th Avenue was cordoned off by police for a fake Trump with a half-naked model in a Bentley. Public chaos became so great that police escorted them to Trump Tower. She notes, "It's bizarre how people react to the appearance of a celebrity. In New York, everyone wanted to take a selfie with Trump.

The crowd went crazy and, you know, almost all of them were Democrats. Fascinating, isn't it? It shows how obsessed we are with images." She shares more anecdotes, such as when she accosted a man who looked remarkably like George Clooney, but turned out to be the real actor. "When I was with the Clooney double went to a nightclub, female fans literally threw themselves at him within five seconds. So overwhelming."

'Another fake'

Alison Jackson adds another layer of complexity to the question "What is real and what is not?" by bringing together real celebrities with lookalikes. For example, she has created a series of photographs in which the real Sir Elton John poses with a Queen Elizabeth lookalike. The results are stunning.

"Trump says anything he wants too, right?"

While artificial intelligence (AI) is making its appearance in art, the question arises whether Jackson will make use of it. "We are now entering this world, and although we largely already live in a fake reality, I prefer using real people as lookalikes. I consider AI to be another fake, and I am currently exploring this theme in a new film about deep fake, AI and lookalikes, but I cannot say anything else about that."

Public objects

After twenty-five years, she sets no limits on what she makes. "Except that my work has to be legal. I don't want to be sued. Donald Trump also says whatever he wants, right? Of course, not everyone likes it, but that doesn't stop me from continuing what I do. By the way, the big names understand what I am doing.

They know better than anyone how the media create facades and public personas. That is the power of visual language, a catalyst to make you believe what they want." According to her, celebrities are a kind of objects on which we can project our own feelings. She concludes, "Their actual story is usually quite boring. As poet T.S. Eliot put it, 'mankind can't take much reality'. That's why a medium like Instagram is so popular. A semi-fictional reality is so much easier to live in."

The exhibition 'Truth is Dead will be on display at the Fotomuseum aan het Vrijthof in Maastricht from 23 March to 15 September 2024.

Check also: alisonjackson.com

fotomuseumaanhetvrijthof.nl

STYLE PASSPORT ALISON JACKSON

Camera: Sony and my iPad

Artist: Andy Warhol

City: Santa Monica, Los Angeles

Instagram: @photografiska

Celebrity: "Love to hate Donald Trump"
Red lipstick: Chanel

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