VULCAN GIRLS, JESUS AND FRED GEORGE

Stiftung Starke presents the award-winning New York photographer Fred George and his exhibition “Vulcan Girls, Jesus and Fred George” as part of the European Month of Photography 2006 in Berlin-Grunewald, Germany. The gallery of the Stiftung Starke shows the photographic exhibition the Vulcan Girls, the new installation “Vulcan Girls Unmanaged” and the politically topical photo series “Jesus as a Suicide Bomber”.
Photographed at the “Vulcan” scrapyard on the outskirts of New York, the “Vulcan Girls” are the culmination of a development, both photographic and philosophical, spanning many years. In colour-intense, larger-than-life, translucent Duratrans photographs held in massive stainless steel frames, Fred George portrays the metamorphosis of women into dehumanised, industrialised beings. In doing so, the artist creates a visual document of the migration of Eastern European women and the result of their fusion with Western culture. The Vulcan Girls were received with enthusiasm by the international audiences of Art Basel Miami, Art Miami and the Houston FOTOFEST.
“Jesus as a Suicide Bomber” made its debut at FOTOFEST 2006 in Houston and was featured by the news channel Fox News, which opened its coverage of the Fotofest with Jesus. This provocative photographic document addresses the problem of religious iconography, which is often distorted and manipulated as a means of propaganda. Inspired by the “Spiritual Zeitgeist”, Fred George photographed Jesus as early as 2000 (before 11 September 2001) in New York with a 20x24 Polaroid camera. In his other two- and three-dimensional works the artist likewise takes a critical look at religious symbolism.