Tobias Kaspar: Bodies in the Backdrop

Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zahnradstrasse, Zurich

The exhibition shows the installation Bodies in the Backdrop (2012) which is composed of 20 color photographs, and a slideshow with separate sound, which was initially shown at the Halle für Kunst Lüneburg in early 2012. Correspondingly, a catalog of the same name was published by Walther König Verlag, Cologne, and is now available at the gallery. The title, inspired by Elizabeth Lebovicis text about Ghislain Mollet-Viéville, points to the affective and economic relationships of tensions between collectors and other actors in the field of art. The photographs document a visit to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and how heaviliy cropped, it’s main protagonist being a young girl and boy, different works and unknown visitors. These scenes are accompanied by quotes like “I especially hated people making love on my bed“ (see invitation card), or “I could not produce the sum necessary because all my money was tied up in trusts“ from Peggy Guggenheim's autobiography «Confessions of an Art Addict», which have already a strong narrative quality.

 

Especially for this exhibition Kaspar produced the bronze casting Converse, Mens 8 / Womens 10 / UK 8 / EUR 41.5 / 26.5 cm, R (2012) of the interior of a shoe and cut it into several small pieces. The various pieces are provided with a number system that theoretically would allow for a later reassembly. Shown on a pedestal, the bronze seems to have fallen apart and is spread out like rolled dice. The deconstructed shoe made of bronze works as a signifier for the structural meaning as identity creating accessoire. This turns the bronze to a method for a study on the delimitation of the subject. The juxtaposition between the medium and the represented shoe emerges as strategy of self-presentation, which deletes position and function, a strategy that can be applied also from outside. On view are as well 20122TK1JEANS (2012) from the edition Tobias Kaspar realized with Little and Large Editions and launched in early 2012 at the Andreas Murkudis Store in Berlin.