- I have heard someone call the fourth wave feminism, it is a controversial thing to say but the idea behind it is that it is feminism on the internet.
Models or women who can interact with their own image.
And women have a very special relationship to the images of themselves, says Leah Schrager.
With herself as an object and through various digital personalities, the American performance artist Leah Schrager explores the borderland between sexuality, objectification and reception.
At the center is Schrager himself, both as a model and photographer.
But also the social media platforms she uses.
With explicit and challenging self-portraits, she plays with the self-fixation of our time and the art world's view of female sexuality.
Challenges the art world
At Fotografiska in Stockholm, Lea Schrager shows a digital work in the form of a livestream from her Instagram persona ONA.
ONA was created in 2015 as an art project with the goal of celebrity.
But instead of being accepted by the art world, she was met with skepticism.
- If the model is also the artist, then what does a nude image make of art?
If a male photographer photographs a naked female body, it is often considered art.
But if the model himself is the artist, it is not, she says.
Art or pornography
Today, ONA is an Instagram model with 4.4 million followers.
And since a year ago also active on the controversial porn site Onlyfans.
But where is the line between porn and pornography, Schrager has no answer.
- Is onlyfans also art or is it just my visual art that is art?
Or is it art because it is conceptual?
she asks.
According to her, the internet and in particular the social media platforms are the art scene of the future.
- I think it will take a while before you know what you will be able to say about it.
Because it's so contemporary.
It is like early performance art, a completely new genre - and which is occupied by women, she says.
The nude photo exhibition runs from September 3 to November 28, 2021.