Frames of Rebellion

Nadia Lee Cohen is a photographer, director, and self-portrait artist deeply inspired by American and British cinema, particularly from the '60s and '70s. She has gained global attention with her unsettling self-portraits and characters, and "HELLO, My Name Is" marked her first major solo exhibition in the United States. Drawing from the duality of the female form, Cohen celebrates her twisted mind, exploring the paradoxical contrast between strength and fragility that has always characterized the female gender. Her style is hyper-realistic, with a strong voyeuristic component, and her worldview is extremely subversive, often causing discomfort, as anything not fully understood tends to do. Cohen's art offers and asks for nothing in return; it presents itself as bold, free, and critical. Her photography is a liberation from the standardized norms of an industry that imposes its worldview, constituting a true social revolution. Nadia Lee Cohen creates the characters of her subjects before portraying them, and each setup seems to be part of a story with each character being a hybrid of fantastical beings and ordinary people; the artist's imaginary represents all of us.

A few days ago, Kim Kardashian launched the holiday campaign for SKIMS in collaboration with Nadia. The two had previously collaborated on various projects, but what particularly caught the spotlight was the cover art project for CR Fashion Book - a magazine founded by Carine Roitfeld after leaving the editorship of Vogue Paris - whose first issue was in fact dedicated to the American entrepreneur. Kardashian was portrayed with a buzz-cut, thin '20s eyebrows, glasses, and a dirty tank top in a mood reminiscent of Angelina Jolie in "Girl, Interrupted." This mood perfectly represents the desire to dismantle excess, consumerism, and American trash, exploring, however, a contrasting beauty, perversely trendy and glamorous, typical of Cohen's photography. Although the classic long, dark, shiny hair with a curtain fringe had become a trademark of Kardashian, the intention was precisely to create a different, impactful, radical, and twisted cinematic image that represented a completely dissonant reality from the usual. The new holiday campaign depicts the entrepreneur in a playful and flirty way, yet with an attitude always rooted in high fashion. The graphics evoke '90s magazines, while the photography and the setting of the shots, oscillating between sexy and angelic, recall the Playboy campaigns of the '70s. This rebranding not only challenges aesthetic conventions but also how we perceive public figures. Kim Kardashian, often criticized for her excessive lifestyle, now emerges as a more complex figure, willing to explore her humanity through visual art. The holiday campaign serves as a manifesto for this transformation, inviting the audience to look beyond appearances and rediscover beauty in unexpected and contrasting forms.