French photographer and stylist Marianne Maric has sent us these photographs of girls dressed as lamps.

Maric exhibited a video performance of the lamp girls as part of an exhibition called Under my Skin at Galerie Magda Danysz in Paris earlier this year.

Update 19/07/08: Yatzer has pointed out that he ran this story first. Which we're not disputing.

The following text is from Maric:

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I started photography in 2001, and I’ve been constantly taking pictures of my girl friends and mates. My work shifted gradually from shooting them in sophisticated outdoor settings toward a more tridimensional, sculptural approach to the female body.

First, I used photography as a way to freeze time ; my friends were losing their identities, with their faces hidden most of the time. They were looking like dislocated dolls, broken toys or sad robots. My mind has now become a sanctuary where these objectified bodies give some of their life back. I imagine them moving slightly, in a sweet, smooth and shy movement. I need to be in full control, to master those objects I have created. Whereas I initially wanted to freeze these living girls, I am now trying to bring to life my motionless creatures again, even to the point where they could possibly free themselves of my bonds.

I see the world as an endless setting I’m trying to comprehend. I see the human body the same way ; William Klein perceived it as a wonderful and fascinating architecture worthy of being photographed. I used to be afraid of puting life into my pictures and I was destroying them with the tip of my finger. Today though, when I transform a woman into a thing, it always serves the same purpose: allowing me to shape her/it as the subject/object I want her/it to be.

These “lamp-girls” were first conceived as an illustration of the woman as a thing conveyed by the “entertainment world,” but gradually ascending to a state of consciousness. These photographs were part of a broader vision: once the costume was finished, the “living” model put it on and took place on a white rotating base into a dark room. The public had the choice to turn on or off the lamp, the dress, the girl, the room. I wanted to “immortalize” this moment when a woman become a simple household appliance. That is how these photographs were born.

VIDEO SHOW
12 JANV - 9 FEV 2008
HENDRICK DUSOLLIER, YANN GONZALEZ, MARIANNE MARIC, DUDAS MIKLOS, ELODIE PONG, STEFAN RINGELSCHWANDTNER, CHLOÉ TALLOT, CORINE STUEBI
Curator: Carine Le Malet

For the past years the Magda Danysz gallery has been actively promoting video art through monthly video sessions. Now a complete show is dedicated exclusively to this art. Curated by Carine Le Malet (from Le Cube) Under my skin explores the relationship ones has to the body, let it be on the inside or the outside. Beauty, seduction, personnel fears, illness, are all intertwined in a beautiful ballet of images…

As a logical continuation of the gallery’s will to promote the most contemporary form of creation, the Under my skin show is totally dedicated to video. As the curator of the show Carine Le Malet explores the relationship one has to the body. She also questions the notion of the ideal body, the fantasised body. Everything is about perception in these videos. Stefan Ringelschwandtner is all about the inside, whereas Corine Stübi concentrates on the physical, exterior of the body; but one that is broken. Hendrick Dussolier looks into the face à face confrontation. Seduction and the way we look at each other is also a theme for Yann Gonzalez, Marianne Maric, Élodie Pong and Chloé Tallot.

Galerie Magda Danysz
78,rue Amelot,
Paris 11 - France