Creamy Psychology: Yvonne Todd

with essays by Anthony Byrt, Justin Clements, Megan Dunn, Misha Kavka, Robert Leonard, Justin Paton, Claire Regnault and Yvonne Todd

Victoria University Press, 2014, 260 pp., $60

Reviewed by David Eggleton for Landfall Review Online

9 December 2015

Nobody packs more commodity fetishism into a photograph than Yvonne Todd – or has more fun with it. Based on satirical deviations from the cosmetic glamour of ‘product’ photography, her pastel-coloured images might be skewed photo-opportunities for aspirational types: young women, older males, various sub-cultural groupings. Now that the encomiums of corporate slogans – ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ – have replaced the directives of the biblical ten commandments as a binding social force, we are teased and tantalised by perfect-looking role models, placed on pedestals (or digital platforms) as idols of consumption to worship and emulate. One result has been the advent of those three brow-furrowing n-words – narcissism, neuroticism and nausea – as a kind of default mode for anyone inhabiting today’s media-saturated environment. In other words, all of us.

Read full review at Landfall Review Online

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