In 1976, the
German heavy metal group, Scorpions, released their
record ”Virgin Killer”. On the cover a 12-year
old girl poses naked. The cover caused such strong reactions
that it was exchanged for another in several countries.
The image resurfaced in 2008 when the British Internet
Watch Foundation blacklisted it – and for several
days even blocked Wikipedia where the cover photo was
available. This in turn provoked an intensive debate
about censure and freedom of expression.
This record cover has been with Anneé Olofsson
ever since she saw it in a record shop several years
ago and bought it. She admits that “for some reason
I am still caught by that picture and I have thought
a lot about what it actually is in it that is so provocative.
I got the urge to get inside that cover, to go back
in time and find out more about the girl and about the
day the photo was taken.” Anneé Olofsson
found the photographer, Michael von Gimbut, who took
the original picture. The young girl was promised that
her identity would never be revealed, but it was speculated
that she might be called Jacqueline. Now we can see
the original photograph of the girl in the present exhibition,
where removed from its original context and separated
from the record cover, the image acquires a new meaning
and prompts new questions.
In the video, A Demon’s Desire (2011) Anneé
Olofsson has made a sort of reconstruction of her fantasies
about how the photograph might have been done. Behind
the camera we see Michael von Gimbut, assisted by his
wife Parvin, just as in 1976. Michael von Gimbut was
the only man present at the session: in addition to
the girl’s mother and sister, the PR people, stylists
and representatives of the record company were all women.
Anneé Olofsson is interested in how we decode
images and how the gaze changes over time. She delves
through different layers of meaning, dissects and investigates,
trying to find new questions and answers.
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