“I am a society’s child. This is how they made me and now I’m sayin’ what’s on my mind and they don’t want that. This is what you made me, America.” – Tupac Shakur.
Stepping into Lauren Greenfield’s Generation Wealth exhibition at the Annenberg Space for Photography, this quote rings in the back of my head. I grew up on the westside of Los Angeles, the exact group of people that Greenfield is thirsting to understand in this exhibition. As I walk around the exhibit I see images of teenagers who look exactly like the kids I went to school with. The images of girls at Camp Shane, a weight loss camp in New York resonate not because of their bodies but because I actually know people who went to the same camp. In fact, I even know some of the people featured in these pictures.
It was eerie, to say the least. The kids I went to school with could easily be featured in these images - their larger than life infinity pools, the 15k bar mitzvahs, the designer gowns are all too familiar.
One woman named Wendy, featured in this exhibit, says “I remember feeling so special that I grew up in Beverly Hills. No [other] place had the sort of money that our community did… Having seen so much so early has completely jaded my outlook. I don’t get excited about things that other people do. I couldn’t care less about going to a really expensive restaurant. I couldn’t care less about going to a movie set and meeting a celebrity. Riding in a limousine does not impress me at all. When you grow up and you’re exposed to so much, you expect more as you get older.”
Greenfield describes this exhibit as “the influence of affluence,” photographing America’s elite since 1992. Author of “Fast Forward,” “Girl CULTure,” and “THIN” she has also had her hand in the 2006 HBO documentary by the same name, a short film entitled “kids + money,” “Beauty CULTure,” “The Queen of Versailles,” and the “#likeagirl” Super Bowl commercial. Greenfield has spent over two decades documenting the lives of wealth.
There were various artist’s statements scattered across the gallery, commenting on both the images and the larger culture that surrounds them. One, under the headline of The Cult of Celebrity, paints the picture of the infamous Los Angeles culture that I grew up in. “For Lauren Greenfield, celebrities are the face of consumer society’s holy grail: a lie not only of limitless material possibility but also of maximum public exposure. Rapper Tupac Shakur described it in his posthumously released song “Fame” as ‘One thing we all adore/Something worth dying for.’”
In a statement from Jackie Warner, a fitness trainer and TV personality featured in her own photo she said “Fitness is the most important thing in this city, because Los Angeles has the highest ideals. You walk down the street, and 75 percent of the people you see are highly attractive. I go home to Ohio, and 75 percent of the people are unattractive. Here, people have the money and the inclination to pay a lot to take care of themselves.”
We also see Lindsey, a young girl sitting next to an older man poolside with bandages covering her nose. In the caption she explains, “I had wanted to get my nose done since I was twelve… My friends started getting plastic surgery during my freshman year of high school. By the time I was a senior, I had friends who had everything from nose jobs to breast enlargements to breast reductions and liposuction. Out of my ten close friends, six of us got something done. When all my friends were getting their noses done, we could tell what doctor had done their nose.”
The exhibit also held a more interactive area where you could sit in a padded fluorescent room and hear a doctor describe to “you” what kind of plastic surgery he recommend for you. There were stations to visit and buttons to click - it was a children’s learning museum for anyone who grew up in the area. One mirror in particular caught my attention:
This exhibit was able to visually explain the character of the Los Angeles in a way that I’ve always dreamed of explaining in my writing. While I don't think the exhibit gave me the golden key for how to explain it, it definitely invited a way for others to look into this absurdist world of Los Angeles - and for those in it to see bits of their own reflections.
The exhibit also included a guest log where visitors could comment on their experience in the gallery. My favorite had to be from Calvin, age 5.
If you’re in the Los Angeles area this summer, I would more than recommend you taking an afternoon to visit this exhibit. Whether you’re a tourist and wanting to understand the culture of where you’re visiting or you’re a local who has yet to realize the “influence of affluence,” this gallery is hard to beat.
Included in the bottom are various images from the gallery that stood out to me. Here is a sampling of Greenfield’s incredible work.
