Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine.

This is generally off from the sort of thing I normally post, but I am completely fascinated by the recent work of German-born photographer Anna Skladmann. "Little Adults" is a series of portraits, featuring the uncomfortably made-up and dead-eyed children of Russian elites. It's like everything that's creepy about those baby beauty pageants, but with (generally) better taste.

Which, somehow, manages to make it even more creepy. Skladmann says:

The series explores what it feels like to be a privileged child living in Russia, a country where its radical history and social hierarchy still rules their daily lives. It is the exploration of the recently growing society of the "Nouveau-Riche", in which children have been raised to become the "Elite" and to behave like little adults. These portraits express a tension between the natural character and the stereotype of appearance, and how that co-exists in the world of children."


You really must go check out this entire series. It will haunt you.

Tip o' the hat to Sami at Ty.rannosaur.us.

  • avraamov

    when i want heartwarming family portraits, i find Roger Ballen is hard to beat –

    http://www.rogerballen.com/Platteland/galleryPlatteland5.htm

  • Anonymous

    that girl is wearing a versace dress

  • kisters

    Reminds me somehow of Michael´s Jackson WonderLand Ranch pics. whacky fancy furniture & inner voids.

    A great song, Un Poco de Amor Frances, lyrics read “luxury is vulgarity” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMVSw2xS3sA

  • Anonymous

    Perhaps the fact that these “children” appear to be like “adults” is the very reason that they are “elites”. You don’t get to be “elite” by playing videogames and watching TV until you’re 18 and magically turn into a responsible adult. If the parents know this, perhaps they raise their children with the same idea.

  • Anonymous

    incredible series! stunning and amazing

  • Ernunnos

    Not dead eyed. Some are actually quite lively, particularly the two sisters with the pink wraps, who look like they’re going to spring into shenanigans the instant the shutter closes.

  • Anonymous

    You think that’s creepy? You’ve never seen anything from Vlad Models.

  • wolfiesma

    Eewww.

  • Anonymous

    Also similar to ‘Ricas Y Famosas’ ( http://www.google.com/search?q=ricas+y+famosas )

  • Daemon

    Funny, as a photographer, I look at these as a fairly interesting set of staged portraits. Far more interesting than the “sit in front of the painted backdrop and smile” portraits most of us got as kids.

    The girl in the bakery… that’s just spooky.

  • bjacques

    Torn from the pages of the late Exile.

    White Punks on Dope!

    I like the sisters pictures.

    “Did you finish cleaning the closet?”
    “Yes ma’am. It took us forever and ever and ever…”

  • Takuan

    now that’s just creepy.

  • cycle23

    Mostly awesome set of images. Makes me think of Eric Wareheim’s ‘Kids’.

    I prefer this to the precious snowflake approach.

    As for the looks on their faces, go take some photos of the non-rich in Russia. Or just the mediocre. Still get the same eyes. You folks are just anti-rooskie.

  • cycle23

    Also, to be more specific, Eric Wareheim’s video for MGMT. But I do mean his entire notion of how to present ‘Kids’, including the Tim&Eric stuff of similar scale.

  • Hugh

    I find portrait photography like this difficult. The photographer is hoping we’ll believe in the moment that’s been co-assembled by themselves and the subjects, but there’s no knowing how much of it is a natural reflection of the subjects ordinary behaviour, and how much is a staged distortion. Were the kids asked to dress up in their once-a-month party clothes and mom’s make up and act serious? Or is this how they regularly hang out? On the other hand, if the photos *were* accompanied by a bunch of text to satisfy my desire for back-story, it would somehow diminish the effect.

    Clearly something is weird here, but is it the kids or the photographer? Given it’s Russia, I’m not ruling out the kids.

  • Tenn

    Some of them aren’t that bad- kids in swimsuits, and some of the ones with the girls in dresses just seem like young ladies getting ready for a dance- I had a big puffy dress or two when I was leetle-

    but DAMN the casino ones. Eerie.

  • cycle23

    Here’s the British take on the same thing. Notice they don’t have Russian eyes:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1174626/Rise-child-women-The-new-breed-girls-young-dream-manicures-diets-breast-implants.html

    Also, I figured out why I keep making the same mistake. MGMT has Kids and The Youth. Wareheim got all up on the second, but I’ll take Steve Mohanahan’s Child Clown’s and the Child Clown Shoe Outlet any day.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdwKTDhPo8E

  • crazybob

    Hugh, it’s clear that these photos contain imagery created by the photographer meant to convey her interpretation of these children’s feelings. I don’t think anyone claimed that they reflect real life.

    Everyone else, these children are real people that agreed to participate in a work of art. Can we not make them and their parents regret the decision by referring to them as “creepy”?

  • demidan

    Those are not children, they are robots made by Sirius Cybernetics ala Marvin 2.0.

  • Anonymous

    I don’t think they’re dead-eyed because of their station in life. I think they’re self-conscious because they’re dressed in completely unaccustomed finery… like getting dressed up in a full tuxedo at 14, it feels alien around you. All the weirdness of puberty compressed into an hour or so of dress-up.

  • nosehat

    @ Hugh: I find portrait photography like this difficult. The photographer is hoping we’ll believe in the moment that’s been co-assembled by themselves and the subjects, but there’s no knowing how much of it is a natural reflection of the subjects ordinary behaviour, and how much is a staged distortion.

    Actually, these are the kinds of questions you should be asking of any photograph.

    These were haunting.

    Did anyone else notice the lamp in one of the pictures that appears to have been made from a gold-plated machine gun!?? I really want that lamp!

  • Anonymous

    Could just as easily be Newport Beach, CA.

    Lanval

  • Anonymous

    “dead eyed”? P’raps y’all just aren’t familiar with the nuances of Russian facial expression.

    The Japanese think Russians are frighteningly wooden-faced, and the Russians think the Japanese contort their faces into frightening rictuses when they speak.

    I see a wealth of expression here. Of course I work with Russians every day. Wonderful photos!

  • zuzu

    It is the exploration of the recently growing society of the “Nouveau-Riche”, in which children have been raised to become the “Elite” and to behave like little adults.

    Wait, what’s the problem with children acting like adults?

    “Child” and “adult” are loaded words, so I want to be careful about whether “child” means “immature” or “adult” means “stodgy” (or “sexy”).

    But I’d argue that there’s something just as, if not more, creepy about adults who socially engineer children to act according to the archetype that the adults expect children to be like.

    This includes censoring children from reality and subjecting them to infantile media.

    Sorry, but there’s already too many adults who are walking around acting like bratty immature children for me to complain about a 12-year-old who is grounded, responsible, and expects to be treated as an adult.

  • starfish and coffee

    As # 16 points out, the photographer herself had a heavy hand in how these photographs turned out.

    It’s fairly unlikely that she just happened to bump into these kids in a casino or that the kid in the bakery normally wears that kind of outfit in a bakery. I think it’s moot to read these images as any form of factual report on Russian society. Not saying they are bad works though, but I think some people need to get their heads around the concept of a staged photographs as a valid way of making art in its own right. Photography isn’t all documentary.

    # 20, Yep Roger Ballen is a great, totally staged as well.

  • postliteracy_dot_org

    When I saw the post intro initially, I read it as saying “the uncomfortably made-up dead children.”

    Russian oligarchs are adopting the spectacle of a neo-Victorian death culture? Who knew they had so much style!

    Imagine my dismay upon re-reading of the (all too predictibly) banal reality of parvenu glamour shots.

    Then I browsed through the images.
    Aahhhh… I may not have mis-read the post that first time, after all.

  • JoshP

    These were difficult images for me to look at. The juxtaposition of child/adult in modern western culture has blurred and blurred. Bah, television. I concur with everything @zuzu.+ The reason why I felt the need to look was out of respect for both subject and artist. I think we are trying to create a sane culture, sane people have to look at what they are uncomfortable with and deal with things rationally.
    But… the one in the bikini…if it was up to me, would never leave the house in that outfit and would be grounded til’ she was about 25 if she tried. IMHO