Artist: Tobias Kaspar
Exhibition title: The Complete Interview Magazine, Issue 529, Winter 19
Venue: VI, VII, Oslo, Norway
Date: March 10 – April 11, 2021
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and VI, VII, Oslo
VI, VII is pleased to present The Complete Interview Magazine, Issue 529, Winter 19, 2020 a series of fifty-two works on paper that translate the fashion and many celebrities featured in the magazine Andy Warhol founded in 1969 into fragile, elegant individual works. Executed in ink and acrylic paint, this series forms a time capsule of media, entertainment and life before the pandemic. Characters are carved out from the dark, like Seurat’s charcoal portraits and drawings from the 1880s.
The titles of the individual works are in reference to the magazine often using photo captions as the title of articles, choosing to include information such as “photographed by” or “is wearing.” This gesture links the drawings back to the magazine rather than isolating them from their source, so that this connection is embraced and all is intertwined.
To some viewers Kaspar’s ink drawings may feel like the portrait of a decade now closed, things that never can be again: a Seth Price Bomber jacket work, Grimes dressed in Dior, dancers from the New York City Ballet, a chef from Noma, Copenhagen’s renowned restaurant draped in Lanvin. Finn Wolfhard, the actor, and more make cameo appearances.
“Independence,” a monograph recently published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Franz und Walther König presents the artist as a specialist in capturing and questioning the issues that we are trapped in through a practice that spans several channels. Through a plethora of activities, he conceptualizes the artistic economy on several levels, from the personal to the corporate. His work revolves around the mechanisms that shape the processes of value creation and taste formation. As an actor with multiple competences his projects explore the creation of desire and added value and when and how these come to be.
Tobias Kaspar was born in 1984 and lives and works in Zurich. He is the co-founder of PROVENCE the bi-annual magazine and runs his own clothing line. His studio which is used for artistic production, is also home to Longtang, an art think tank and exhibition space that he co-founded in 2018.
Solo exhibitions by the artist have taken place at Kunsthalle Bern; Kunsthalle, St. Gallen; Kunsthalle, Sao Paulo; Cinecittà Studios, The Swiss Institute, Rome; KIM? Contemporary art Center, Riga, Latvia; Midway Contemporary Art Center, Minneapolis; Peter Kilchmann Galerie, Zurich and Silberkuppe, Berlin.
The artist’s work has been included in group exhibitions at Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Kunsthalle Zürich; Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin; The Artist’s Institute, New York; Artists Space, New York; Swiss Art Awards, Bundesamt für Kultur, Basel; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles; Galerie Francesca Pia, Zurich and Freymond-Guth Fine Arts, Basel and Galerie Neu, Berlin.
Forthcoming exhibitions include “Rented Life” at Mamco Geneva (solo) and “Information Today” a group show at the Kunsthalle Basel opening in May 2021.
