distorted youth

In an inexplicably strange concept, German media outlet, Welt Kompakt, right-sizes leaders of the world if only for a quick double-take, followed by a nice laugh.

This whole series is from a full corridor-length wall display at Berlin’s Schonefeld Airport. Joel and I had fun naming the more obscure leaders while wondering how and why these were chosen over others. For instance, where is Sarkozy, Putin, Chavez, etc?

Apart from all the fun were having with these, I was left with the lingering thoughts of how babies and children are depicted throughout art history. More specifically, the Christ baby in all the Madonna and Child portraits in early Christian art / the Byzantine period. I believe this is when the depicitons of children began where they are infant or child size, but with adult faces.  If remember correctly, there are still traces of this found in Renaissance and Mannerist works as well.

Then again, after these images kept nagging at me, I looked at them again. These aren’t adult faces on these kids at all. The only adult traces are from my memory, otherwise they’re just toddlers with distorted expressions emphasizing the absurdity of the situation.