Jacqueline Hassink: Car Girls

Earlier this year Aperture published a deluxe edition of Car Girls, limited to 1,500 copies. By popular demand, we are pleased to issue this instant classic in a handy, adorable "travel-size." Initially created at the request of one of the biggest European car show exhibitors, this mini-edition is now available to the general public. Car Girls is the culmination of a unique project created over a five-year period. Jacqueline Hassink, who has received critical acclaim for her books and exhibitions, traveled to three different continents and attended seven car shows to capture the work of the women employed to embody the corporate identities of international auto companies. 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." Most crucially, Car Girls is a document of what may have been the last gasp of extravagance from an industry in crisis. Both editions were designed by the award-winning Irma Boom.

Jacqueline Hassink is a Dutch-born, New York-based conceptual artist whose widely-exhibited photographs deal with the theme of economic power for instance in 'Table of Power' (1996), for which she photographed the boardroom tables of Europe's 40 largest multinationals. Other publications include 'Female Power Stations: Queen Bees' (1999), 'Mindscapes' (2003) and 'Arab Queen Bees' (2005).

It remains to be seen whether the practice of using female models to embody the corporate identities of international auto companies was in fact a final spasm of extravagance from an industry now in crisis. Thankfully, Dutch photographer Jacqueline Hassink's Car Girls is a subversively fun, conceptually sharp and smartly designed document of the spectacle. A body of work that has taken more than five years to complete, Car Girls captures seven car shows in cities on three different continents. Each site was chosen by Hassink to reflect different cultural values regarding ideal images of women and beauty. By highlighting the association between gender, sexuality, power and commodification, Hassink heightens the surreality of the show, revealing what she identifies as "a moment of performance in which the women became more like a doll or a tool instead of an individual." Earlier this year, a 1,500-copy limited edition of Car Girls was published. This second, "travel-sized" edition of Hassink's instant classic has been created to satisfy popular demand, and was, like the first edition, exquisitely designed by Irma Boom. Jacqueline Hassink , born in Enschede, the Netherlands in 1966, has published extensively, most recently The Power Book (2007) and Domains of Influence (2008). Her photographs are in the collections of the Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, among other institutions. She is represented by Cohen Amador Gallery, New York.

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