At the Fotomuseum aan het Vrijthof in Maastricht an exciting new exhibition by multi-award winning British photographer and filmmaker Alison Jackson will be presented from 23 March until 15 September 2024. Titled ‘Truth is Dead’, the exhibition showcases sixty portraits and two videos of international celebrities using cleverly styles lookalikes and actors to stage simulated paparazzi shots and documentary footage of intimate and salicious imagined private lives of these celebrities.

Check out here the portraits of the British Royals, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, David Beckham, and Donald Trump.

At the exhibition, you can spot recognizable and renowned public figures, including the British royal family, David and Victoria Beckham, Bill Clinton, Simon Cowell, Elton John, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Angela Merkel, Marilyn Monroe, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. Jackson aims to convey the message about the obbessive behavior society has with the lives of celebrities, the way paparazzi and tabloidserratically hound these celebrates and watch their every move. There no longer is a private space for these starts as everything they do is a public media spectacle and consumable products. It makes you doubt and question: what is real and what is staged? And is this distinction even still relevant? Jackson gives her own drastic view: “The truth is dead. Nothing we are shown can be trusted; everything can be faked and nothing is authentic.”

Alison Jackson explores the contemporary cult of celebrity, with the fraught relationship between the private and the public. These images are an example of how easy it is to be deceived when it comes to photography, Jackson demonstrates the acts of deception, imitation, and provocation within these images proving that we cannot even trust our own eyes. Her fabrications also represent a deeper, even more radical truth, as they reflect the longings and illusions of the viewers, toying with their perceptions and challenging the claim to objectivity. Sometimes hyperreal, obscene, or titillating, the photographic parodies are always entertaining and humorous. A collection of these photographs is bundled in her book ‘PRIVATE’.