by Jonathan Blaustein

My Dad told me a strange story the other day. Then he tried to tell me again, the next day, sitting in the same chair. Seemed like a great metaphor for Thanksgiving. Same day, same meal, same people, every year.

He read the tale on the Internet, so I immediately assumed it untrue. According to Dad, there’s a guy in China who sued his wife for giving birth to an ugly baby. Once paternity was established, everyone figured he’d lose. But then they discovered his wife had undergone massive plastic surgery, and used to be butt-ugly-heinous. He won a settlement from the judge, so the story goes.

Fortunately, my new baby daughter is totally gorgeous. For now. We’ll see what develops. If she ends up with a grand and Roman nose like I have, we might have to visit the plastic surgeon’s office in 2028. (Happy 16th Birthday, honey. Enjoy your new schnozz.)

Just as we haven’t yet digested how insane and unhealthy it is to be digitally connected to everyone else, all the time, the plastic surgery epidemic is equally absurd and troubling. One can only imagine the daily damage done to impressionable young girls by the cavalcade of fake everything on display in today’s myriad media. Fake boobs on Perez Hilton, fake skin in the fashion mags, fake lips on Top Chef.

People can now, for a fee, cut and paste their bodies, molding flesh like anthropomorphized DNA. That’s pretty nuts. Phil Toledano showed us the freaks, in all their Caravaggio’d-out horror. Great stuff. But mocking the loonies doesn’t exactly lead to subtle iconography.

Cara Phillips’ new monograph, “Singular Beauty,” published by Fw: Books, offers a serene and insightful look inside the scalpel industry. I must say, the book is curiously made. After unwrapping the plastic, one opens the solid, minimalist, white cardboard box-cover, and finds a color-copy-paper-ish, stapled catalog inside. Strange and super low-tech, it seems intended to subvert our desire to aestheticize everything. It also references a catalog in a waiting room, where a fancy lady might peruse herself some boobs.

I was off-put at first, as I’m used to leafing through so many of these expensively crafted productions. But I do give props to the structural metaphor, and it’s in evidence here. The pages are also quirky, as each is an inseparable double-fold, with the titles wedged in between. Black text emerges from beneath the white paper. (Again with the outside/inside dialectic.)

The photos are really well seen: medium or large format, lots of studio lights, banging away in high-end plastic surgery consultation rooms. With tight formal construction, Ms. Phillips shoots the fancy-leather-reclining chairs, the liposuction pump machines, anesthesia stations, metal pokers, and nasty tools of the trade. It’s cooly done, clean and meticulous. That enables the viewer to supply the mental details, like blood seeping into a plastic syringe. (Or liquid fat sucking into a lexan cylinder.)

The photos were all shot in LA, New York, the OC, and DC, so we’re probably only seeing inside the exclusive joints. Not sure that matters much, but it’s definitely not Bakersfield. (Hola, me llamo Dr. Reyes. Quieres un nuevo estomoco? Venga a nuestra officina para un grand discuento. Solamente esta semana.)

I like the work a lot. And for once, I don’t have to chastise the creator for exploiting the Boobs Sell Books℠ phenomenon. Whether as doctorly doodles, or in a sexy-type montage photo, they definitely belong. Couldn’t tell this story without them.

Bottom line: Conceptual book, killer photos, flimsy innards

To Purchase “Singular Beauty” Visit Photo-Eye

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