Lipstick Leaders 2016-2019
100 portraits of women in leadership.
Premiered at Kraftwerk Zurich in June 2018. Portrait sittings at The Female Quotient house during the World Economic Forum in Davos. An interview with Ana Maria Montero on CNN Money Switzerland. Presented at the Lean In convention in Zurich. Shown in full at the Kunst Zürich art fair in 2019.
When I thought about leadership, I thought about women. Without hesitation, without deliberation. The project grew out of that obvious connection.
I wanted to make an installation that recalls the walls of the past: covered with portraits of prominent men, serious, concerned with prestige and authority rather than beauty. Only on my wall, the portraits are of women holding leadership positions of every kind — as naturally as they could always have hung there.
Why women?
The question came up again and again. That women in leadership should be taken for granted is not something our society takes for granted.
But I never set out to prove that women can lead. I set out to show that they already do.
I grew up around strong women in positions of leadership. I saw their strength and their resolve first-hand, and that fixed the connection between womanhood and leadership in my mind early on..
Why lipstick?
The second question people always asked. The title is meant ironically.
Cosmetics are associated with outward beauty. They can also direct attention. In these otherwise colourless portraits, the mouth is the only thing carrying colour. The viewer is meant to look — and to listen to what she has to say.
The stripe of lipstick is a reminder of both at once: that these women have something to say, and that seriousness holds its own beauty.
The sittings
Every portrait comes with a conversation. I ask about each woman’s approach to leadership, what leadership means to her, and leave room for her own story. Some speak about where they come from and how they began; others about their current position and how the world sees them in it.
While we talk, I draw them as they present themselves. What emerges are serious portraits, mostly without a smile.
Why charcoal
I chose the most basic and widespread substance humanity knows: charcoal. Carbon — what we are all made of.
Together with the venue, a former power station, the material draws a line from the cave paintings of our past to the portraits of prominent figures in our present. It is meant as a reminder that we are human first, and that society is what brings us together — as cave paintings and campfires have done since the beginning.
What holds it together
We tend to focus on what separates us. The lipstick that makes some seem less serious. The position that lifts one above the rest. Yet every one of us wants to be seen, heard and understood.
Lipstick Leaders brings these apparent opposites together: vanity and hard work, woman and business, cave painting and glossy headshot. Many things can be true at once. “And” is often more honest than “but”. A portrait can be black and white and in colour. A woman can have a career and be a mother. Charcoal can be primitive and revolutionary.
Every portrait visibly belongs to the same series, and every woman remains her own person within it.
After the first exhibition I continued to portrait and interview. The works were shown in various formats across several Swiss cities. Each exhibition opened a new view onto the project.
Lipstick Leaders — work documentation (PDF)
