Quitting Smoking Might Be Easier

In the digital age, youth is the ultimate status symbol. Picking up on current beauty trends, Lisa Großkopf stages herself smoking in a series of performative self-portraits. The cigarette, as the antithesis of anti-ageing par excellence, turns the race against time into an absurd farce. Instagram and other platforms are teeming with flawless foreheads, sculpted jaws, and plump cheeks, all thanks to easy-to-use photo editing apps. The multi-billion-dollar fast-growing cosmetics industry is flooding the market with all sorts of creams and serums that claim to slow the inevitable aging process. The list of ingredients in these products keeps getting longer and longer and includes everything from caviar to avocado to snail slime. Fads like using a jawline trainer, doing face yoga, or getting a leech treatment quickly pass each other the baton. Großkopf’s photo series Quitting Smoking Might Be Easier takes a humorous look at this trend. By posing with a cigarette, she highlights how paradoxical the quest for eternal youth truly is.