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| Dasha Zhukova - gallery owner and girlfriend of Roman Abramovich - pictured sitting on a contorted, near-naked mannequin of a black woman. |
In an airy white blouse, Dasha Zhukova poses serenely on a chair, in a
photograph taken for a Russian fashion website. The only problem: the
chair is fashioned from a contorted lifelike mannequin of a black woman,
sparking an internet outcry and allegations of racism.
It did not help matters that the photograph of Zhukova a Russian
socialite, gallery owner and the girlfriend of oligarch Roman Abramovich
was published on Martin Luther King Day, a national holiday in the US.
The photograph accompanied an interview with Zhukova published on the
Russian website Buro 24/7, a project of fellow Moscow "it girl"
Miroslava Duma. The picture was widely condemned by bloggers and
internet users, and has since been removed from Duma's Instagram feed.
In the photograph, the mannequin is naked, save for knee-high boots,
elbow-length gloves and black hotpants. She is lying on her back with
her legs crushing her breasts against her body and her head tilted up,
possibly in pain. The Russian gallery owner, who has become one of the
best-known figures on the international art scene, looks calmly at the
camera, resting her back against one of the mannequin's upright boots.
The chair echoes a 1969 artwork in which the mannequin was white, but
that is unlikely to absolve Zhukova from criticism over an image that,
at best, appears appallingly misjudged.
A representative for Zhukova could not be reached for comment, but the
website that published the article apologised for any offence caused.
"Buro 24/7 is categorically opposed to the idea of racism, oppression or
humiliation of people in any form," said a representative of Buro 24/7,
reading from a statement. "We see this chair purely in an artistic
context. We apologise to all our readers who were offended by these
photographs."
Bizarrely, the website did not remove the photograph from the article,
but simply cropped it, so that Zhukova was visible but her mannequin
chair was cut out of the shot.
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