Elisa Sighicelli Petits Rats : Rossi & Rossi

Masses around the world flock to see editions of his most famous sculpture, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (c. 1880), at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; and the Musée dOrsay in Paris. Young dancers at the end of the 19th century often came from impoverished families-hence the term les petits rats-and to earn extra money were often pressed into a double life as underage sex workers. Another grouping of three images captures the dancers as they execute developpés-a movement that includes the full extension of the leg with strong arms yet delicate wrists and hands. Because Sighicelli chose to shoot these small sculptures, each is roughly 60 centimeters, immediately after being catalogued post-exhibition, the object labels still hang around their bodies, echoing the dancers exploitation.