Those nude photos of celebrities such as Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton that were stolen and uploaded to the Internet over the weekend are no longer confined to college dorms around the country. They can now be called art.
The stolen photos will be part of the "No Delete" exhibition by L.A. artist XVALA, opening in the Cory Allen Contemporary Art showroom in St. Petersburg, Florida on October 30.
XVALA will print the nude photos on canvas, unaltered as part of the artist's "Fear Google" campaign, which features private images of celebrities found on Google. "We share our secrets with technology," said XVALA in a statement. "And when we do, our privacy becomes accessible to others."
The "Fear Google" campaign began in 2011, when XVALA posted similar leaked images of Scarlett Johansson all over the streets of Los Angeles, with a logo covering her funny business. He also used a photo of Britney Spears with a shaved head as part of another work.
"XVALA appropriating celebrity compromised images and the overall 'Fear Google' campaign has helped strengthen the ongoing debate over privacy in the digital era," said publicist Cory Allen.
According to CACA, the exhibit will also include sculptures made from the trash of celebrities and icons, such as Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Kim Kardashian and others.
"In today's culture, everybody wants to know everything about everybody. An individual's privacy has become everyone else's business," said XVALA. "It has become cash for cache."
"The commentary behind this show is a reflection of who we are today," said Allen. "We all become 'users' and in the end, we become 'used'."
The photos of Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton that will be used in XVALA's exhibition come from the hundreds that were stolen from over 100 celebrities and posted online during Labor Day weekend. It has been acknowledged that some of the photos were taken from the people's personal iCloud accounts via hacking. Apple has corrected a security flaw that may have been exploited to download the photos.
