Hannah Gadsby’s visual feast of selfies over the centuries

IT is comedy season and Hannah Gadsby is on in the middle of her tour of The Exhibitionist, her latest show inspired by beautiful works of art over the centuries — and her current love of selfies.

With this in mind, the art history graduate dispels any question that her tour is a drab slideshow. No ma’am.

“Don’t worry there will be boobs. There will be nipple, and lots of jokes,” Gadsby promises.

She also deftly says her show will not be thick on lesbian content: “No. I am a big lesbian, there is your lesbian content. I talk about my private life a bit — there’s a bit of lesbian content.

“And boobs. Fucking boobs. Nipple action.”

She says her time as an arts student left her admiring what art does, as a medium and a communicator.

“Art tells a great story about humanity and I just think it is ripe for material,” she says.

On specific muses, Gadsby says her show will feature the chief mistress of Louis XV.

“I talk about Madame de Pompadour in the show. She ruled the court from the side. She was a really powerful woman as the king’s mistress,” she says.

“She had so many portraits so I am going to show the many faces of Madame de Pompadour, which includes nipples. She slipped the nip out.”

Drawing on modern selfies, Gadsby has snuck back in time to have a look at self-portraiture — the selfie of yesteryear.

“The current trend of selfies has been going on for centuries and that is my point of looking at this art and saying ‘that is a selfie’. They just couldn’t paint so got someone else to do it,” she says.

Some selfies caught Gasby’s attention more than others, with her favouring “the ones that have my face on them.” She also pokes fun at the more prolific selfie-takers of the modern celebrity world.

The Star Observer asked Gadsby whether selfies were a form of modern day archiving, or an outlet for narcissism and bragging.

“Selfies can be egotistical and marking a moment,” she responds wryly.

“Selfies are so interesting to look at. Not just your own but others. It is like ‘who is this person?’ — particularly when that person dies, they become instantly fascinating.”

This is where Gadsby combines the modern day with earlier times and the stories that have been captured with oil, paint and canvass.

With plenty of laughs, combined with a bucket load of inspiring art all with a modern-day take, her show is set to be a success.

INFO: Hannah Gadsby’s The Exhibitionist is on as part of the Brisbane Comedy Festival between March 11-16 at Brisbane Powerhouse. She is also part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival line-up. Details: hannahgadsby.tumblr.com/gigs