For their “Lost Cheerleaders” photo series, Luke Batten and Jonathan Sadler–the two-person collective New Catalogue–imagined that a “cheerleader bus overturned, and they all started wandering off in different directions. We also had the idea that they might be lost figuratively, like a lot of teenagers looking for something in their lives,” Sadler says. One cheerleader stands in a parking lot, for example, while another carries a load of firewood in a forest. Batten adds, “They’re each trying to survive in the natural world–it’s a comment about how popular icons are cherished, glorified, used, and abused.” The words “New Catalogue” are emblazoned on the women’s chests, he says, because “we thought it might be a good idea to have our own New Catalogue cheerleading outfit, both adding self-promotion and commenting on it.” Their first book, Big Ten Co-eds, Preppy Girls, and The Lost Cheerleaders, is also on sale at the gallery. Though they’ve done a series called “Men in Briefs,” their publisher preferred they stick with women in the book.
