Perhaps you know artist Charlie White for his propensity for alien puppets, pornography, sticky liquids, and suburbia. Maybe you recognize his work for its careful staging that takes a large crew months of preproduction to organize. And you might be familiar with Joshua, the creepy-looking 5’2″ male puppet from White’s 2001 series Understanding Joshua, which White used to explore human frailty and male self-loathing in distinctly American settings.

While White is still interested in gender identity and sex in America, his latest series, The Girl Studies, explores these issues not in meticulously staged tableaus, but in intimate portraits. Central to this new work is a group of five photographs titled Teen and Transgender Comparative Study, which parallels two puberties: one biological, the other chemical/surgical. Over the course of a year, White worked to identify teen and male-to-female transsexual subjects who, when viewed together, would create a visual bridge between female adolescence and male-to-female sexual transformation.

The Girl Studies also premieres White’s first film, American Minor, a 35mm short that meditates on the isolated world of an American teenage girl, as well as his first animated work, a Saturday-morning-style cartoon titled OMG BFF LOL. The book American Minor, which chronicles White’s studio work from 2003 to 2008, will be released along with the exhibition.

Charlie White’s The Girl Studies runs through December 30 at Loock Galerie, Berlin.

KEYWORDS: art, Charlie White, photography, sex, teenagers

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