cigarette cards – Alison J Carr

Art Encounters (2008)

An audio piece. I recount some formative art encounters, in order to think about what remains of the encounter. The afterwards reflections; did these experiences form the artist I am now? I presented this as part of the Mid-Residency group show at CalArts.

**Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, **Mlle De Bremont** (2008)**
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

Recreations of found cigarette cards from 1939, using myself.

**Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, **Maria Gregor** (2008)**
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

**Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, **Maryse Grandt** (2008)**
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

**Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, **Jacqueline Ford** (2008)**
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

**Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, **Iya** (2008)**
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

**Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, **Ginette Vrala** (2008)**
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

**Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, **Getty Jasonne** (2008)**
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

**Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, **Erni Erika** (2008)**
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

**Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, **Catherine Hamilton** (2008)**
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

One afternoon in 2005, I came across a tin full of cigarette cards at a flea market. I leafed through to look more closely at the miniature pin-ups. I noticed the backs of the cards with the dated biographies of the girls on the cards. I selected all the dancers from the tin (there were actresses, models, swimmers and tennis players I rejected, no one in the tin I had heard of before) and bought all of them. As I walked home, I decided to recreate all the photographs using myself as the model. The original cigarette cards were objects to be held, looked at closely. They were private cards to view, collect and exchange. As enclosures in cigarette packs in the late 1930s, it was presumed that these were gifts for a male consumer. Looking at them with contemporary eyes, they look glamorous, innocent, staged and seductive.

*Felicity Means Happiness,* 2018
Video, 16 mins

The story of a 98-year old former chorus girl. In the thirties, Felicity was a Bluebell Young Lady. She toured France, Germany, and Italy until WW2 was declared in Italy. *Felicity Means Happiness* shows Felicity, telling her stories, and Carr showing Felicity her artworks inspired by 1930s dancers, and footage of an Austrian film Felicity was in. What is conveyed is the connection between the two women as well as the realities of dancing and living independently in the thirties.

*Bauhaus Bühnenchor*, 2018
Performance, 35 mins
Construction House, S1 Artspace

Choreography by Lucy Haighton
Scarf design by Katy Aston / Fison Zair
Performers: Celia Anderson, Julia Bisby, Jo Dunkly, Liz Searle, Emily Stokes, and Roanna Wells.

*Bauhaus Bühnenchor* is a live performance that experiments with the girl troupe kickline. Using the kickline as a form with the potential to represent women’s collective and creative force Bauhaus Bühnenchor imagines the experiences of Weimarian female art students and chorus girls as well considering the context of dancing in a troupe today.

One afternoon in 2005, I came across a tin full of cigarette cards at a flea market. I leafed through to look more closely at the miniature pin-ups. I noticed the backs of the cards with the clipped-1940s-BBC-announcer biographies of the girls on the cards. I selected all the dancers from the tin (there were models, swimmers and tennis players I rejected, no one I had heard of before) and bought all of them. As I walked home, I decided to recreate all the photographs using myself as the model. My desire to explore another identity merged into a kind of wish, ‘What if I were this person in the photograph?’ The photograph represented such a desirable location that I wanted to be there. The details of the location, although totally unknowable to me, were here presented, as though the top layer of that location were lifted off and frozen. How could I thaw it out and get there?