Melanie Pullen, (born 1975)

Half Prada, from "High Fashion Crime Scenes"

Half Prada, from "High Fashion Crime Scenes", 2003
Unique chromogenic print, flush-mounted; accompanied by a label, signed in ink.
sheet / flush-mount 78 1/2 x 54 1/2in (199.4 x 138.4cm)

Works from Melanie Pullen's acclaimed series, High Fashion Crime Scenes (2003-2017), represented here and lot 134, are based on vintage crime scene images she found in the files of the Los Angeles Police Department and he LA County Coroner's Office.
Drawn to the rich details and compelling stories preserved in these criminal records, Pullen began re-enacting these crime scenes, using well-known actresses and models dressed in haute-couture, and photographing them in her elaborately staged settings. Pullen's intention is to use fashion as a means of distracting the viewer from an otherwise gruesome scene and to expose in all of us a kind of unsavory collective voyeurism.