Paris Photo LA: Come Up and See Me Sometime

Presented by Klowden Mann
Paramount Pictures Studios
May 1–3, 2015 
Los Angeles

From the Klowden Mann announcement:

Come Up and See Me Sometime presents new works in conjunction with the Paris Photo LA on the Paramount Picture Studios soundstage and New York City Street backlot. 

Bettina Hubby’s photo collages sources images from the Golden Age of Hollywood as its starting point, reconfiguring them into composite figures that are titled with quotes from the famous female stars who inspired them.

The heyday of Paramount Studios radiated glamour and effortless style through seemingly blemish-less beings. The siren song of that era still exerts its charm through time, echoed in these reassembled stills. The collages create an alternate nostalgia and serve as an homage to the actresses who secured their place in a male-dominated industry through force of character, intelligence, and talent.

Select works were enlarged as wall decals within the exhibition space at Paramount Studios (2015) to emphasize the beauty and bigness of personality that defined that world, and how we are starstruck (or dazzled) by it. The pieces expand upon the language of her applauded exhibition at Klowden Mann in 2013, building upon her consistent ability to simultaneously support, engage with, and challenge the conventions of the exhibition setting.

Hubby about the series:

“I used Mae West as the central muse for the series because of her consummate wit, refreshing candor, and unapologetic glamour. By intermingling hairstyles, suits, heels, derbies, and gowns, I created unions of opposites, combining masculine and feminine codes, and the fairy dust of Hollywood’s golden aura with its constructed artifice.”