There are generations raised on images in which the cigarette was taken for granted. Kate Moss with a cigarette between her fingers. James Dean with a fag in the corner of his mouth. Naomi Campbell and Robert De Niro, photographed and filmed in a way where smoking seemed inseparable from charisma, excitement and attraction. The tobacco industry carefully constructed that image, and popular culture did the rest. The question posed by AN UNFILTERED EXHIBITION is as simple as it is confrontational: is all this allure actually from the cigarette, or was it already there?
The creators of this exhibition are neither curators nor established photographers. They are first-year and second-year MBO students from fashion, music and media colleges, three fields of study that together cover precisely the area in which smoking images have endured longest. They chose some of the most recognizable portraits from past decades and reworked them, with one essential difference: the cigarette disappeared. What remained is the core of each image.
The remakes show that the tension in the portrait of James Dean was not created by smoke. The pose of Kate Moss, the look of Naomi Campbell, the intensity of Robert De Niro, those are in the composition, the light, the expression. Not in the smoking utensils. By removing that gear, the students force a reassessment of images everyone thinks they know. And it works. The remakes are recognizable, but something shifts in how you read them.
The cigarette disappeared from the remakes. What remained is the core of each image, and that is exactly the point.
What makes this exhibition extra touching is the timing. Smoking is returning as an aesthetic symbol in contemporary catwalk shows, series and music videos. The illusion constructed decades ago is simply reviving. The fact that young MBO students are now critical of it, and know how to express it visually, says something. Not only about their education, but also about how their generation views visual culture. The cigarette is gone. The attitude has remained. That's exactly the point.