Josephine Meckseper’s first solo museum exhibition in Texas opens at Blaffer Gallery this fall. Exhibition curator Rachel Hooper interviewed the artist to discuss her
Houston premiere.
R
achel Hooper: Your installation contains a wide variety of contrasting objects, ranging from glamorous silver mannequins
and photographs of muscle cars to raccoon tails and even toilet brushes. Why are you drawn to these contradictions,
and how do they fit into the larger concepts in your work?
Josephine Meckseper: There is no affirmative reassurance in the seemingly benign display forms and the objects that are presented in them. The emphases on display configurations
in the form of shop windows, shelves, platforms, etc., are intended as artificial ignition points and triggers for destruction and repulsion. They represent the moment right before a demonstrator picks up a stone and vandalizes a store. They are signifiers of consumerism. This is key to the work: the objects themselves are mere signs of capitalism. It’s a different process from appropriation. Instead, I create a sense of “de-fascination” and instability through non-affirmative representation of consumer products.
RHRH
: American politics is a major theme in your exhibition at Blaffer. Is there an identifiable moment or event in the past that motivated you to address U.S. politics in your work, or has your interest gradually evolved over time?
JM: I was a student at CalArts during the onset of the first Gulf War. The school campus was suddenly invaded by right-wing local residents waving American flags, cars on the freeway rushed by with “Kill Saddam” stickers, and the news seemed very propagandistic compared to European television. I became interested in Situationist strategies and collaborated on actions with other students that revolved
around those techniques. The last “happening” accidentally
merged with the Rodney King riots. That, of course, forced us to interact with reality — I ended up filming the fires and riots.
During the George W. Bush administration, events in the United States presented a different political challenge.
My work started to reflect on the experience of living in a country that foments global wars for oil and that violates its own Constitution. New York at the same time had become
an incarnation of consumption at its most extreme. Its countless showcases and advertising posters, which I walked by daily, appeared more and more in my works.
RHRH
: Why do you feel it is important to think about the Iraq war in an art or museum context?
I recently interviewed Josephine Meckseper for the Blaffer’s Newsline in anticipation of her solo exhibition at Blaffer, which will open September 11. The interview is intended for a general audience who is probably unfamiliar with Josephine’s work and her previous writings, interviews, etc. But she has some really interesting responses to my basic questions. Here’s a copy of our exchange:
Rachel Hooper: Your installation contains a wide variety of contrasting objects, ranging from glamorous silver mannequins and photographs of muscle cars to raccoon tails and even toilet brushes. Why are you drawn to these contradictions, and how do they fit into the larger concepts in your work?
Josephine Meckseper: There is no affirmative reassurance in the seemingly benign display forms and the objects that are presented in them. The emphases on display configurations in the form of shop windows, shelves, platforms, etc., are intended as artificial ignition points and triggers for destruction and repulsion. They represent the moment right before a demonstrator picks up a stone and vandalizes a store. They are signifiers of consumerism. This is key to the work: the objects themselves are mere signs of capitalism. It’s a different process from appropriation. Instead, I create a sense of “de-fascination” and instability through non-affirmative representation of consumer products.
RH: American politics is a major theme in your exhibition at Blaffer. Is there an identifiable moment or event in the past that motivated you to address U.S. politics in your work, or has your interest gradually evolved over time?
JM: I was a student at CalArts during the onset of the first Gulf War. The school campus was suddenly invaded by right-wing local residents waving American flags, cars on the freeway rushed by with “Kill Saddam” stickers, and the news seemed very propagandistic compared to European television. I became interested in Situationist strategies and collaborated on actions with other students that revolved around those techniques. The last “happening” accidentally merged with the Rodney King riots. That, of course, forced us to interact with reality — I ended up filming the fires and riots.
During the George W. Bush administration, events in the United States presented a different political challenge. My work started to reflect on the experience of living in a country that foments global wars for oil and that violates its own Constitution. New York at the same time had become an incarnation of consumption at its most extreme. Its countless showcases and advertising posters, which I walked by daily, appeared more and more in my works.
RH: Why do you feel it is important to think about the Iraq war in an art or museum context?
JM: I am deliberately taking the risk of confronting the radical indeterminacy produced by the capitalist system on its own terms. Contemporary art doesn’t possess a universal language yet because it’s economically tied to an elitist structure.
By addressing timely subject matter [like the Iraq war], I point out how capitalism creates an unequal imbalance of power, down to the very form of commercial products. I look for cultural and sociological “end points” as a platform from which to subvert reality into fiction and vice versa. My recent exhibition at the migros museum für gegenwartskunst in Zürich was a representation of relics from a war fought for oil; life-sized oil rigs and a military bunker tied into an overall installation that represented a decaying consumer society. My recent film 0% Down, made with found car commercials, negates the manipulative force of advertising by exposing the potential for violence in the products.
When you address current issues and topics in an art context, the work always runs the risk of appearing too literal or becoming quickly dated. On the other hand, it has the potential to capture and preserve a perspective on the present for a future viewer. George Grosz or Otto Dix’s paintings are good examples to consider in this context.
RH: Your work is primarily based on a critique of capitalism. Do you think the current economic crisis has altered the public’s perception of your artwork from 2005 to 2008? Has the crisis affected the work you’re currently creating?
JM: The current crisis is only a symptom of the ups and downs of the free market system, not an indicator of its total demise. Nothing has really changed; it’s just more of what it already was.
I’ve explored the downside of capitalism for many years by means of a non-affirmative usage of slick surfaces and imagery. The reading of the work, though, remains circumstantial, as it reflects the respective degree of criticality that the viewer brings to it. The fundamental principle of my art is a conceptual way of thinking and formulating ideas. I’m interested in a language that can articulate concepts in diametrical, abstract, and fictitious ways. It’s a way to process and reflect on the world without being tied to overly determined forms and meanings.
Robert Enright will be giving a tour of the Jon Pylypchuk exhibition tonight at Blaffer Gallery from 6:30 to 8pm. He has been hanging out here at the museum for a few days sharing his insights into Pylypchuk’s work, based on his extensive interviews with the artist and his first-hand knowledge of their mutual home Winnipeg, with the staff and UH School of Art students. Some major themes that Enright plans on discussing tonight are the art of impoverishment, epic narrative, and the “profound sense of hope” to be found in Pylypchuk’s art. Here’s Enright’s official bio:
