Jacqueline Hassink: Car Girls Portfolio

Dutch artist Jacqueline Hassink has received critical acclaim for her books and exhibitions with their subversively fun yet conceptually astute approach to issues of power and social relations. Car Girls (Aperture, 2009) is a body of work that Hassink created over five years, photographing major car shows in seven different cities on three continents, including New York, Paris, Geneva, Tokyo, Detroit, and Shanghai. As she describes it, she has used these sites to reflect on “differing cultural values with regard to their ideal images of beauty and women.” The series captures the moments during the women’s performances when they become more like dolls or tools than individuals. Hassink titles each work according to the brand of the car, reinforcing that these girls have no names, yet represent the ultimate dream or fantasy related to luxury and power—all there in front of the eyes of the male car show visitors who desire and yearn for it.

“[Hassink’s images] make us rethink the association between auto and eros as if it had never occurred to us, and to see it newly in all its sheer outrageous strangeness.”—Francine Prose, Aperture magazine, Issue #188

“One thing I found interesting is the body language of the car girls: they always touch the car. There is always a moment when they touch the surface of the car. The male viewer might think: ‘If I possess that car, I can possess the girl.’ This act of touching is very sensual and seductive. The car symbolizes the male and the hand of the girl, the female.”—Jacqueline Hassink

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