Solo Exhibition of Swiss Author Tobias Kaspar
At Foundry Seoul Until the 18th of Next Month
'Tobias Kaspar, Personal Shopper, Foundry Seoul, 2022' Exhibition View (c) Noh Kyung. Photo by Foundry Seoul
[Asia Economy Reporter Heeyoon Kim] Tobias Kaspar, based in Zurich, Switzerland, and Riga, Latvia, is a contemporary artist and fashion brand CEO, as well as a designer and editor-in-chief of the magazine 'Provence,' showcasing his creative prowess across diverse fields.
Foundry Seoul presents Tobias Kaspar's first solo exhibition in Korea until December 18. Kaspar explores the patterns of consumer desires and values formation and transformation in modern society through various media including painting, photography, video, publishing, and installation. The artist has a deep interest in 'fashion,' which significantly influences the formation of contemporary individual identity and behavior while sensitively capturing social changes and responding swiftly. He presents works that transform the grammar and production methods of fashion.
This exhibition introduces the multifaceted world of Tobias Kaspar, the art world's enfant terrible, through 32 new and recent works from three series he has been immersed in over the past few years?Personal Shopper, The Japan Collection, Epicenter?and installation works devised to fit Foundry Seoul's exhibition space, critically portraying modern individuals with a dynamic yet elegant visual language.
The exhibition aims to provide a simultaneous and comprehensive view of the artist's broad oeuvre by interweaving works from various series. Additionally, the curtain printed with the Tobias Kaspar logo surrounding the entire second exhibition room and the large-scale photographic installation in the void area evoke the sensation for visitors as if they have entered Tobias Kaspar's fashion house. This sensorial experience reflects the artist's wit in quickly sensing contemporary fashion trends and translating them into his own language.
The series Personal Shopper, sharing its name with the exhibition title, began during the 2021 COVID-19 lockdown. For the artist, who has explored the changing codes of fashion, style, and consumption amid societal shifts, the full emergence of online platforms due to the pandemic and the new consumption habits formed thereby were noteworthy phenomena. Through this series, Kaspar questions how these phenomena have altered the messages and images fashion uses to captivate consumers and how modern individuals are affected by such changes.
The Personal Shopper series was created by capturing various scenes from online edit shops as screenshots, printing them on canvas, and then silkscreening multiple layers of patterns or repetitive brushstrokes actually used in haute couture fabric production. The first layer consists of meticulously planned scenes designed to attract consumer attention, such as full-body poses of models or close-up faces, or scenes revealing consumer tastes like shopping cart lists containing products. Over this, a painterly gesture layer was added, featuring floral bouquets, wildflowers, brand logos, or brushstroke-inspired patterns selected from a Swiss fabric pattern archive. The artificial materials and mechanical creative methods of screenshots and silkscreen patterns deliberately limit the artist's spontaneity and individuality, reflecting his strategy to actively borrow the 'industrial' aspect of fashion into the realm of art and attempt formal expansion of art.
Moreover, works created by overlapping two screens remind viewers of how modern people consume and appreciate fashion and art through screens, while the two fields respond to rapid media and environmental changes by presenting expanded interpretations and scenes.
Tobias Kaspar actively uses fashion as a language to convey his message. Through the characteristics of fashion and industry, he reveals contemporary phenomena while maintaining a contemplative stance shared with the audience. Furthermore, the public desires embedded in fashion, which the artist focuses on, continuously pose questions to viewers within the works, woven as intricately as haute couture.
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