Helena Janečić and Ana Opalić Le-ZZ-Be coming out project
"Self-portraits
by artists Helena Janečić and Ana Opalić become realized within
the framework of art practices that annul differences between
artistic and political activities, imbuing the forms of art
aesthetics and activism. Tactically manipulating the strategies
of advertising in public space and intending to confront society
with visual and cultural perception of lesbian and queer identity
directly, the artists (individual works of which also problematize
the genre of self-portrait) produce a series of staged self-portrait
photographs coded by text messages into the form of simulated
advertisements, and in this way subversively decompose public
space of dominantly straight culture. Against the background
of cultural stereotypes, establishing their own activities on
gay discourses, in the photo-series the authors acquire different
roles, formed through assimilation of the autobiographical and
the performed, by the means of which they provoke redefining
the cultural constructs of femininity, and question the problem
of self-presenting..."
