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Catherine Leutenegger's photo exhibition of babies in white cardboard boxes, now showing at La Galerie at 17 rue de la Coulouvrenière in Geneva, is both profound and troubling.  That is Leuteneggar's intention.  The "babies" are actually polymer dolls, which Leutenegger ordered from a Swiss distributor.  They are sold on line for anywhere from $100 to $200, and they are eerily life-like. The first clue that they aren't real comes as you gradually notice that each baby  is nestled in its own cardboard box.  Leuteneggar, who is a youthful 27, was clearly going for the shock that follows when you realize that you've been taken in by an extremely effective illusion, but her real goal is deeper than that.  "We are living in a time when parents are on the point of being able to pick the sex of their children and even determine the hair coloring and other features," Leutteneger says, "It raises questions about where the limits are." Leutenegger notes that the illusion only works when the baby's eyes are closed. "If the eyes are open," she says."You can immediately see that it is not real."

Exploring the world that we live in, but often fail to notice, is Leutenegger's specialty.  It is a world that Leutenegger often finds troubling.   Her recent projects include "Kodak City," a photographic book that explores the desolation and self delusion that enveloped Rochester, New York,  Eastman Kodak's hometown, after it was  devastated by the shift from film to digital photography. The company's failure to keep pace with change, and more important, its inability to recognize and cope with the technological evolution of photography is at the core of the work.

Another project, "Hors Champ" consists of photographs of studios, dark rooms, and the workspaces  where images are created as photography moves from film to digital.  As Leutenegger explains, it is an inquiry into the future of photography.

The photographs in Welcome Home Baby explore the implications of work created by an American artist, Linda Webb, who began to make life-like reproductions of living babies after her son, Benjamin, was born in 1978.  "I knew that photographs and memories would not be enough to keep the image in my heart," Webb explains on her website. "learning infant anatomy will be an ongoing study for years to come."   Webb began providing her life-like "infant sculptures"  to Ashton Drake, a company that sells "collectible" dolls.  Ashton Drake manufactures a vinyl version of the doll and sends it back to Webb who then photographs it and posts the photographs on her site. Webb' style is definitely pink and heavy on the cuteness of babies. In contrast to Leutenegger's stark shots, Webb poses her dolls in different positions to enhance the illusion and to make them look even more real. On her website she explains that she cut some of the stuffing out of an Ashton Tate doll so that the head would fall over more naturally.

Leutenegger is more interested in motivations than in the techniques of precisely replicating infant anatomy in polymer and clay. After all, Madame Tussaud's wax museums are quite capable of doing that. The force in Leutenegger's photos comes from the viewer's emotional reaction to gradually uncovering the illusion. That reaction creates a kind of epiphany which gives the spectator a larger insight into what may actually be taking place in our society.

It is a subject that increasingly captures the attention of scientists designing the robot-helpers that will play a more and more ubiquitous role in our future. A great deal of work, for instance, has gone into analyzing drivers' reactions to the accent and tone of voice in the GPS navigator that goes into your car. Ironically, studies by toy manufacturers indicate that children are frightened by dolls that look too realistic. They prefer easily identifiable caricatures, a Mickey Mouse or even R2D2, to more precise copies of actual living beings. Healthy children know that play is really just pretending, and they do not want to confuse it with reality.  After all, recognizing the difference between the real and the imaginary is a prerequisite to sanity. What children really want is to practice their own social skills and techniques on something that they can identify with, but which is clearly distinct from the real world that they are learning to cope with.

When adults play with dolls, something else is going on. Exactly what hat that is is hard to say, but one suspects that grown adults, passionately collecting extraordinarily life-like fake babies may be only a symptom, or merely be an echo, of the social changes in a society that is just beginning to learn how to cohabit with its avatars. Catherine Leutenegger is right to explore where the limits are. Her photographs raise questions demand deeper reflection on where we are headed. The exhibition at La Galerie is an experience that you should not miss.

LINKS

Catherine Leutenegger's Website

Linda Webb's website

Ashton Tate

La Galerie
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