Julian Rosefeldt’s Global Soap project is a vast collection of soap opera images archiving housewives’ favourites from all over the globe. Highlighting the TV template of formulaic plotlines and fluency in the universal language of schmaltz, Rosefeldt’s Soap photos present multiple panels of characters playing out identikit roles. Cropped to the format of actor’s publicity shots, the groupings of Rosefeldt’s subjects read like multi-national casting calls for archetypal villains and victims.

Within Rosefeldt’s project issues of racial and national difference give way to the fashion of globalised sameness. The perception of ‘other’ is removed from ethnic preconception with each figure identified through their familiar dramatic parts rather than their outward appearance. As rows of characters shake fingers and scowl, wave hands with indignation, or gesture in false modesty, Rosefeldt trades the habits of cultural assumption for the altogether more alluring indulgence in titillation and melodrama.

Julian Rosefeldt approached the offices of the Goethe Institut around the world and asked them to record soap operas from their respective national television channels. With the video tapes they provided, Rosefeldt constructed a moving picture archive of the stereotypes of soaps. The gestures, expressions and language of characters were condensed into sequences of multi-national, multi-cultural archetypes that conflated the diverse with the unified and the ‘other’ with the mainstream. Intertwined or emphatic fingers, furrowed brows, clasped breasts and heads in hands transcended cultural boundaries to be subsumed into a global language of stereotypical emotional shorthand. In the soap opera everyday life merges with a fantasy world. The illusion is played out in reality as it contributes to the process of establishing cultural meaning.

Read Entire Article about Artist Julian Rosefeldt paintings and artwork at The Saatchi-Gallery http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/julian_rosefeldt.htm