I shot marilyn monroe

Bremen 2006

Silkscreen-print 60 x 60 cm; 3 series of 9 prints

“I Shot Marilyn Monroe” addresses the interchangeability of icons. The question it asks is: What does the reproduction of a reproduction bring to mind for the viewer, once its content and title are replaced by their opposites?

The replaced content here is a portrait of Valerie Solanas, the radical feminist writer who came to fame primarily thanks to her unsuccessful assault on Andy Warhol. Her portrait replaces the famous one Warhol made of Marilyn Monroe. The actress was already a world-famous sex symbol when Warhol made his multiple reproduction of her portrait and thus she serves here as a symbol of all that Valerie Solanas despised and deconstructed in her writings. Valerie Solanas, for her part—the would-be assassin of the icon of Pop Art—is the very antithesis of reproduction, consumerism, stylized femininity, and male privilege.

The title “I Shot Marilyn Monroe” is a reference to American star filmmaker Mary Harron’s biopic about the life and times of Valerie Solanas.

The silkscreen-print posters were followed by a postcard action with the title “Un Hommage à Valerie Solanas.”