Julia Fullerton‑Batten’s photographs revive the sets of Hollywood’s golden age

Golden‑light sunsets, pools surrounded by lush palm trees, entire neighborhoods of well‑kept villas, and curtains in the windows behind which the glimmers of domestic joy — but also the most secret family miseries — remain hidden… The whole world is nothing more than a giant canvas painted by an artist in a Hollywood studio. It exists because someone first turned it into a movie set.

After the arrival of pixels and digital art, animation, and special effects, the backdrops from films like The Sound of Music or Ben‑Hur were rolled up and forgotten in dusty warehouses. Discarded, they lost all their magic. They stopped being the world and became nothing more than painted cloths. Until photographer Julia Fullerton‑Batten traveled to Los Angeles to recover some of them and give them a second life in her project The Art of Hollywood, which will be released this year.

“By stepping into these painted spaces, I bring them to life, staging new narratives that resonate with films we thought we knew, but only remember fragmentarily,” explains this 55-year-old German artist. Hand-painted backdrops where canvas and pigment are enough to create a story. Even if it’s a fabricated one. Even if it’s nothing more than a set.

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