Neanderthal Beauty Clinic

“Neanderthal Beauty Clinic” is an installation created by Madlen Hirtentreu (@madlenoffice) and Darja Popolitova (@darja_popolitova), exploring how beauty procedures have become quickly consumable products and revealing how activities marketed as self-care can conceal mechanisms of bodily control and subjugation. Hirtentreu’s and Popolitova’s installation presents an aesthetic laboratory with an undefined temporal origin. It is partly a shrine, partly a clinic, where medical and cosmetic objects intertwine – everything from LED masks, syringes, nose-slimming clips and foam toe separators – as well as animal-derived artefacts and materials like silver, charcoal, and stone, all of which appear to be part of an attempt to invent yet another absurd beauty procedure promising eternal youth for the body. Through the materials used, the artists highlight the invasive methods and almost unattainable standards employed in the pursuit of beauty and youth. The exhibition was first presented at Estonian Applied Art and Design Museum curated by Lilian Hiob (@hiobl). Support: The State Culture Capital Foundation, Cultural Endowment of Estonia