Tobias Kaspar
 

Ballet Dancers, 2019
ultra giclee, mounted on acrylic board, white wooden frame
200 x 160 cm (photo); 205 x 165 x 5 cm (framed)
edition 1 of 2 + 1 AP

Ballet Dancers, The Bike Ride, Jockey among others are part of the series The Japanese Collection (2018-2019) and depict close-up shots from an embroidered fabric. In his research on the structures within the fashion industry, he found a Swiss company that exported embroidered haute couture clothing patterns to Asia from the 1960s to the 90s and photographed their once highly sought-after samples. At the time, the displayed women and ballerinas were meant to disseminate a idealized ideology of western lifestyles for aspiring Asian consumers, intended to spark fantasies and desires. Kaspar has reproduced these images in bright colors with a clean and simple form, and is re-exporting them to Asian countries in the name of art. The metaphor of old desires returning as spiritual products is not only giving away criticism in today’s globalized art market but also a glance into a mechanism of how material and objects are infused with fleeting allure. The term creativity is exploited to maintain cycles of consumption; thus shifting the subjectivity of artistic creation from specific creators to capitalist production and sales processes—which feed upon a perpetual machine driven by excess and illusional needs.

Handbag, 2019
birdcage, cotton cover, acrylic paint, ink
(H)35 x Ø 20 cm (birdcage), overall: (H)175 x Ø 22 cm

During his artist-in-residency in Beijing in 2019, Tobias Kaspar collected birdcages. Those birdcages were once used for raising and enjoying birds by Qing dynasty elites. They can still be found among Beijing’s elderly nowadays but they no longer attract the interest of youngsters. Through covering them with handmade cotton covers, he infuses new meaning and preciousness into the birdcages. To raise the youngster’s interest, he adorned them with elegant, fashionable new clothes and motifs from a Chinese fashion magazine.