There Won’t Be an Exhibit of Stolen Jennifer Lawrence Pictures After All

LA artist XVALA, also known as mild-mannered Jeff Hamilton, was the source of a collective groan after he announced his upcoming show “No Delete” which would feature life-size prints of the hacked nude images of Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton. Well he’s realized just how dumb an idea that is, so instead of using images of celebrities without their consent, he’ll be using his own nude selfies.

XVALA’s change of heart/furious backpedaling came amidst much outcry. Via Independent:

“It wasn’t just about being ‘hacked’ images anymore, but now presented in the media as stolen property,” XVALA said.

I’m not going to lie, I read that sentence over about five times. Sounds like a great use of the Chewbacca Defense in that it. Does not. Make sense.

“People were identifying with Jennifer Lawrence’s and Kate Upton’s victimisation, much more than I had anticipated, which is powerfully persuasive.

“This concept was always about self-examination in our current culture. Why we feel the need to know and cross the lines of other individuals’ privacy.”

Lol.

It was inspiring to see people take action through a petition, signing their name and not just commenting on a thread,” gallery owner Corey Allen said in a press statement.

“The public’s response to cancel the event wasn’t just about invasion of privacy, but becoming more of an issue of the exploitation of women; specifically the two celebrities. Empathising with these real concerns, the artist decided to turn the cameras around on him; wanting the focus to be about an individual’s privacy and not just the exploitation of women.”

Ah, I get it. Ceci n’est pas d’exploitation des femmes. Très artsy.

Who knows? Maybe XVALA’s plan was to feature his nudes all along, and the threat of using Kate Upton and Jennifer Lawrence’s photos was simply a marketing technique. (Doubt it.) Either way, he probably avoided one giant catastrophe by deciding to feature his own nudes, but I’m sure this dude will resurface from general irrelevance in another few years to use the next invasion of a starlet’s privacy as a means of stoking a conversation everyone is already having.