Through the course of my artistic research, I’ve gained a thorough fascination with pop culture and the behavioural characteristics of the ‘Hollywoodians’. From a certain need to relate to this culture, I created ‘Diva John, the worst diva in the world.’ Diva John examines the boundaries of the Hollywood subculture with one goal: FAME, no matter what. Tragically, she will never emerge, although she really thinks she should. This process of identity quest requires an artistic practice that appropriates cliché movie structures, cultural symbols, myths and legends. It is an attempt to penetrate the inner structures and secrets of this society. Important questions arise along the way. Is this culture self-contained or lies its sole possibility of existence in the creation and projection of the mass that is excluded from this society? Obscured by god-like worship and obsession we must ask ‘do they need us or do we need them’?
As I slowly felt the shortcoming of Diva John to enter the realm of this suspense alone, other alter ego’s are emerging. Your future former bride is obsessed by Diva John; an obsession that slowly results in hysteria. She embodies the destructive hate-love engagement from a superfan to a superstar. Bernard, the most boring of mankind is a dull loner, who is desperately trying to appropriate personality and appearance of other people to fill the emptiness of his own. He draws bad self-portraits of himself as Diva John. He doesn’t know yet what his fascination with Diva John means.
It looks like these characters are created to guarantee the importance and stardom of Diva John after all; thus they are a metaphor for the cultural cycle that forced Diva John to be created in the first place.
Do they need me or do I need them?