Unreleased Selfies
Unreleased Selfies is an ongoing series of selfies that were never published on my social networks, printed on 0,75mm polycarbonate sheets. 12,3 x 7 cm: the size of a 5,5’’ smartphone screen.
They are selfies that I originally took for my Instagram. I never published them because they were not good enough or because they were outtakes of other selfies. It is a kind of behind-the-scenes of my posts.
I like the fact that you can only properly see these pictures in the context of an exhibition, while they were initially made in order to be accessible anytime and anywhere online.
Primavera, Primavera, 2024. Exhibition view, Frac MÉCA, France.
Unreleased Selfies, 2022. Exhibition view, Reiffers Art Initiatives, Paris, France.
Unreleased selfies Drop on Zien, 2021.
Unreleased selfies Drop on Zien, 2021.
Unreleased Selfies, 2022. Digital print. 12.3 x 7 cm (36 x 27 cm framed).
Unreleased Selfies, 2017 - ongoing. Digital print. 12.3 x 7 cm (36 x 27 cm framed).
I think the selfie is no longer a phenomenon. The Ben Elliot ongoing series Unreleased Selfies is based on a mechanism of contradiction. The images demystify the private sphere and glorify virtual interfaces while making unprecedented use of it. Shown for the first time, these selfies were considered “not good enough” by the artist to be released to the public anywhere at anytime on Instagram. Here, they portray for a limited time a panel of moods uncorrelated from the moment of their occurrence and question the relationship to immediacy of social networks. They show that the virtual fuels its possibilities of reality with its modalities of presentation. When ? How ? The selfie is no longer a phenomenon, but a potential tool of expression and a slide from the individual narcissism to the social life environment.
Elisa Rigoulet
Independant Curator
Unreleased Selfies, 2017 - ongoing. Digital print. 12.3 x 7 cm (36 x 27 cm framed).
Influencers, 2019. Exhibition view, Galerie Hussenot, Paris, France.
Unreleased Selfies, 2017 - ongoing. Digital print. 12.3 x 7 cm (36 x 27 cm framed).
«Ben Elliot has integrated the changing paradigms of the 21st century into his work. The truth of reality no longer opposes the fakeness of the virtual, the private sphere is no longer a protected domain. Ben Elliot uses his “improved” selfies to show all the possibilities of his body and his characters. Lots of artists use their body as a tool, staging the image of their body to make their art, the concretization of a possibility that was virtual. But with Ben it’s different, he virtualizes the possibilities of reality, dematerializing his bodies and our world. And this post-humanist artist fascinate us.»
Thibaut Wychowanok
in Numéro Art Magazine
Influencers, 2019. Exhibition view, Galerie Hussenot, Paris, France.
Unreleased Selfies, 2017 - ongoing. Digital print. 12.3 x 7 cm (36 x 27 cm framed).
Unreleased Selfies, 2017 - ongoing. Digital print. 12.3 x 7 cm (36 x 27 cm framed).
Exhibition view, Fondation Fiminco, Paris, France.
Unreleased Selfies, 2017 - ongoing. Digital print. 12.3 x 7 cm (36 x 27 cm framed).
Exhibition view, Annka Kultys Gallery, Online.
Unreleased Selfies, 2017 - ongoing. Digital print. 12.3 x 7 cm (36 x 27 cm framed).
Exhibition view, Annka Kultys Gallery, Online.
