EJ Major
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2009 Helsinki Photography Triennial 2009, Helsinki
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Aletheia – Positions in Contemporary Photographies
"It is her process of deterioration, degeneration, degradation, painfully stretched to the fifteen years period embraced by the photographic sequence, even if both symbolically and literally performed, even “lived”, by the artist, that is the subject matter of Marie Claire RIP. Nowhere is the relentless hand of time so upfront in its unforgiving work as in these images, nowhere is tragedy so matter-of-factly argued as when photography is employed in its most fundamental mission, that of marrying time and death."
Jan-Erik Lundstrom – Curator of Aletheia and former Director of Bildmuseet Umea, Sweden
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2008 StreetLevel Gallery, Glasgow
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"Marie Claire RIP typifies the puzzles set by an audacious solo debut; ostensibly photography, its power rests in the artist’s ability to imprint a mood and a tone into the picture. So is this also performance art? If it is, then it unusual in taking illustration – in this case, the conventions of photo-journalism – as a starting point for a performance." Mitch Miller in Varoom No 7 P 56-57 (2008)
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2007 Heidelberg Kunstverein, Germany
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2nd International Fotofestival
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Mannheim, Ludwigshafen, Heidelberg
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"These 12 self-portraits in the guise of a staged index documenting the downfall of an unknown drug-addict constitute a reflection on the ideology of photography and on the cultural inscription of the female body. It can be argued that photography does not so much represent as it performs; it serves to symbolically inscribe a mark on the social body. On the other hand, here we find that this act of marking also takes place on the female body itself, that of the unknown woman we see embodied through Major’s features. The female body becomes the blunt of a violent écriture as a result of drug abuse, the symptoms of which can be said to match those of other disorders (anorexia and domestic violence for instance). Beyond the specificities of its production history, the series Marie-Claire RIP highlights and critiques the deed of this double inscription on the female body – that of the symbolic violence perpetrated by the photographic apparatus and that of the direct physical violence of drug abuse."
Essay Everything Is… by Catherine Somz´e – Writer and Art History Professor at Willem de Kooning Academie
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"Twelve self-portraits show Major, first as a fresh-faced, preppy teen, ending up hollow-cheeked, battered, bruised and wearing filthy clothes. This is powerful stuff and, once again, Major uses relatively simple tactics to expose a broad range of concerns."
Jack Mottram in The Herald Friday April 4th 2008
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2007 Bildmuseet Umea, Sweden
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"EJ Major has found a highly original niche in the currently much frequented field of the photographic portrait. For her Marie Claire RIP series is not merely art for art’s sake, a sort of vain self-stylization; its aim and the perfection of its realization bring forth fascinating questions as to the basic credibility of the photographic portrait. It instigates a polemic with the question of authenticity and fiction in this area, rendering the chosen theme with compelling complexity." Simona Vladikova in Fotograf no 7 / 2006 / vol 5 p4-7
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