For this Summer Session we’re thinking about celebrity, and today we’re considering the divide between the promise and the reality of celebrity influence. Over at Dazed, Thomas Gorton has penned a review of artist James Ostrer’s series The Ego System, a set of portraits of famous figures made out of meat and viscera. Ostrer’s work is an attempt to refuse the glamor of celebrity, and to remind himself that there is a real difference between “what we are being sold and what we are actually getting.” The article was originally published on March 22, 2016.

James Ostrer. Emotion Download 213M, 2016, from The Ego System series; photograph; 101 x 67 cm. Courtesy of the Artist.

We love celebrities. Seemingly, even if we hate them. Despite invoking endless torrents of “I fucking hate her!” each time she appears on a website, Kim Kardashian was the most Google-searched person in 2015 across 26 countries and heavily clicked on. Similarly, Donald Trump might make mind-blowingly awful, heavily criticized remarks on a daily basis, but he’s by far and away the most searched for U.S. presidential candidate. Like it or not, we’re hooked.

In his latest body of work, The Ego System, artist James Ostrer is seeking to challenge the idea that our modern icons and the very concept of celebrity isn’t what it seems to be. “I am responding to the vast divide between what we are being sold and what we are actually getting. I’ve labeled them “Emotional Downloads,” as in the process of making them I am trying to remove the information in my head that I realize won’t represent value systems that will lead towards my own happiness.”

Read the full article here.