By JRS
A self portrait of the one and only Michelle du Bois
This Friday night marks the opening of Zoe Crosher’s latest chapter in the ongoing saga of Michelle du Bois, the American-born escort who worked her way across the Pacific Rim in the 70s and 80s. It still remains a mystery as to how exactly Crosher obtained these photographs—and she’s not telling, though it is speculated that du Bois herself bequeathed the massive archive to her fellow shutterbug.
Crosher and co-curator of the first du Bois project, Leslie Grant, explain their work in typical artistic prose: “This project explores the larger-than-life persona and culturally-weighted sexuality found in the wonderous archive and visual fragments of Michelle du Bois. An American woman who traveled in Japan as a prostitute in the 1970s and 80s, she took, collected, kept and bequeathed unto us hundreds of tourist photographs, family snapshots, and pornographic images of herself.”
Crosher and Grant add, “These casual and amateur snapshots of her posing throughout the Pacific Rim propose a complex of disparate but interrelated discourses, including notions of the archive, the role of photography in relation to narrative, story-telling, and personal identity, the politics of private and public, her fetishization of the East and issues surrounding family albums and vernacular images. Her exotic everyday proposes an identity that rises from within rather than any social construct imposed upon her from the outside.”
A collection of photos from Crosher and Grant's first du Bois-inspired show, The Reconsidered Archive of Michelle du Bois
The first du Bois-inspired show, The Reconsidered Archive of Michelle du Bois, opened in Claremont, California in 2008. Crosher’s newest fete to du Bois will be exhibited at DCKT Contemporary in New York from January 8 to February 14, 2010. The Unraveling of Michelle du Bois elucidates Crosher’s fascination with du Bois and her sexually charged journey and, though still an archive (of epic proportions), transcends onto an elevated plain with the passionate assimilation of Zoe Crosher.
While the photographs were taken by du Bois, Crosher lends her hand to the delivery by blowing-up images and contrasting them against each other in a veritable tumultuous harmony. In the tradition of Jeff Koons’ upcoming curatorial debut at the New Museum, it’s a striking example of how far art travels when the hands of multiple artists help push it along.
