Fischerspooner / SIR : character studies, promotional material, self actualization and contemporary photography 2013 - 2018
7 April - 27 May 2018
NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein
Passstraße 29
52070 Aachen
Germany
Germany
When
Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner founded their art,
music, and performance project Fischerspooner in 1998 in New
York, they had a mission - to make the dull and elitist
art scene more open and accessible and to go beyond the
boundaries of art and entertainment. After their first
orgiastic and opulent performances at MoMA PS1, they became
a firm fixture in the city‘s art scene. With their song
Emerge, they even landed a top 40 hit in the British
charts in 2002, and appeared in the cult TV show Top of
the Pops. Thus they transferred their artistically
sophisticated performance project into pop culture.
With
their exhibition SIR: character studies, promotional
materials, self actualization and contemporary photography 2013
- 2018 Fischerspooner present their own queer-lustrous and
passionate universe at NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein.
A site-specific installation filled with the wide variety of
images that has comprised Casey‘s search for a new
identity and character. This journey has taken the form of
artist collaborations, a strategy that the duo had already
been pursuing for the production of the artist book Egos
in 2015. Works by well-know photographers are combined with
images by internet photographers and even friends of the
artists. In the process Casey Spooner as the depicted main
protagonist takes a step back; a portrait of contemporary
photography is being generated. Thereby a survey of different
and betimes even contrary handling of photography as a
medium in the 21st century comes into effect. The emerging
material of various different photographic approaches is part
of current discourse of digital culture, informed by a
constant image production and reproduction.
The
exhibition spaces will be unified in a dense collage on
all surfaces which reflects the omnipresence of multimedia
image culture. In the person and by the photographic
omnipresence of Casey Spooner, the idea of excitement and
obsession in a society construed to the commercialization and
idolization of popculture is being specifically brought into
question. Could the fabrication of ones self be re-enforced
by morality, society and capitalism as a way to control
thinking, populations and sales? This control now certainly
is tied to the branding and commodification of a person's
photographic image. Though what is surprising is that it is
all being generated by the individual. Almost like a
self-fulfilling prophecy of desire and social connection, the
creation of ones own image is closely tied to an innate
longing for attention and community. Furthermore, a
photographic quality will be inherent in the collaged rooms,
inviting ones own photographic engagement with the
installation and thus an unlimited digital reprography. The
image of the image will become permanently available once
taken and put online via social media.
The
installation at NAK is an artistic extension of
Fischerspooner‘s fourth album project, also titled SIR,
recently released in February 2018. It was produced by
Michael Stipe (R.E.M.) and addresses the dissolution of the
boundaries between an internal and an external social self
as well as the constant need for talkativeness about ones
own life – a phenomenon specific in nowadays, more and
more transforming the private into performative and public
space.
With
their show SIR: character studies, promotional materials,
self actualization and contemporary
photography 2013 - 2018 Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner
revisit themes of the exhibition SIR that took place at
Vienna's mumok in the summer of 2017 and bring the current
era of Fischerspooner to its finale.
© All pictures are copyright of NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein