Heidi

Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy’s video work Heidi is a subversive reinterpretation of the eponymous children’s story by Johanna Spyri. With a grotesque and absurd aesthetic twist, which deliberately makes use of the visual strategies of horror films, the two artists deconstruct the innocence and idyll of the original Swiss story. By depicting the characters in an exaggerated and vulgar manner using life-sized rubber figures, the artists criticize the idealization of childhood and rural innocence as well as how popular culture shapes narratives. Art historical references, including the Viennese “American Bar” by the modernist architect Adolf Loos and Otto Dix’s painting Little Girl in Front of Curtain (1922), are also depicted.
Heidi is a provocative example of Kelley’s exploration of cultural myths and their social significance. The boundaries between fiction and reality, as well as humor and horror, are blurred and notions of identity, morality and family structures are critically questioned.