Make My Night (Robbie Williams)

"Paul Smith does a great impression of himself... In the body of work, 'Make My Night', Smith took his multi-self on a lad's night out. He portrayed himself as a group of men getting drunk and living up to the young male cliche of egging each other on, using aggression as a way of bonding, and existing in the state of strange sexual tension that you find in male group dynamics (wearing drag, making constant sexual references to each other). The scenarios are extreme but also exemplify the common desire to belong to a gang: to take on that identity by sacrificing your own. He presented a world that transfers violent behavior into leisure, and by cloning himself Smith also cloned the idea of lad culture. This work may be humorous to look at, but it is also disturbing to see just how recognizable a lifestyle this has become. In both these series, Smith describes the fantasy of being every member of your own club whilst also, at the same time, freely acting out every part of your personality...

In all of his work, Smith breaks from the traditional uses of photography in terms of subject and style. By allowing his manipulations of the image to be clearly staged, and to become such an integral part of the final work, he avoids any form of true documentary reference. He borrows notions from the real world, such as military training, to emphasize that his situations are not real. In doing so, he shows that the desire for these lifestyles is very different to the reality of living them." (https://www.eyestorm.com/saatchi/biography_ smith.asp)