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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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Yesterday I went to see The Legacy of Joseph Wagenbach (curated by Rhonda Corvese). Artist Iris Häussler invented another artist: a little old man, German, an outsider artist living in a tiny house in downtown Toronto and filling it with dark and scary sculptures. The artwork is the house, and the tour given by people who tell you they are from the municipal archives, investigating the "cultural value" of the work. The story goes that the archives have opened up the house to the public, both to allow the art to be seen in its original setting, and to justify the budget, since cataloguing is taking much longer than anticipated. It's a great fiction, and our tour guide gave an incredible performance, never breaking out of character even a tiny little bit. I absolutely loved it.
The artist and curator only revealed the fiction part way through the exhibition, so quite a few people who saw it early thought it was real. I am not sure how I would have felt if I had seen it before I knew. The show was very emotional and intimate, and I would likely have felt manipulated. However I think it is brilliant. And it poses a question: is it wrong to lie for fiction? Even knowing I was in a constructed installation, I still felt like I was tramping through somebody's life. Which is obviously the intention. The character of this old man was very vivid, working out his personal history, including the holocaust, by making big dark sculptural projects that are reminiscent of Anselm Keiffer and directly influenced by Brancusi. There is also weird creepy obsessive stuff going on with the female form, as befits any male outsider artist worth his salt, and a mysterious relationship with a woman who seems to have lived with him for several years. I feel like Joseph Wagenbach is real.
I would love to hear in the comments from others who went, especially anyone who was not aware of the fiction. Here's part of Häussler's statement:
In parallel - as the project is ultimately revealed as an art installation - it initiates a discussion of questions of authorship and ownership, of public perception and curated intention, such as "What defines a contemporary oeuvre?" "What does it mean to be a product of your times?" "What personal history remains in a body of work?" "What products of work are considered as art and for what reasons?" and "In what sense could it be said Joseph Wagenbach exists, or does not exist".