Gina Fischli Love Love Love
Soft Opening, London 16 February – 6 April
At first glance, Gina Fischli’s animal sculptures feel like poor specimens. Not quite 1:1 scale, and crudely modelled from wire mesh and sloppy, off-white plaster, some of them sport pelts made from ragged fabric offcuts, in what might be an only partially successful attempt to disguise how far short their bodies fall from the creaturely ideal. Nevertheless, it’s clear from the way they’re displayed that somebody thinks they have potential. Eleven of the Swiss artist’s critters parade down a low, U-shaped plinthcum-catwalk, contestants in some kind of pet show, perhaps daydreaming of the pat on the head they’ll receive should they be awarded a rosette.
The organisers of this competition appear to embrace diversity, at least in the matters of species and breed. Thomas (all works 2024) is a tartan-sheathed bunny rabbit, Elizabeth a leggy poodle and Albert a curly-tailed pug swaddled in pink, Issey Miyake-like pleats. These pedigree pets are joined on the catwalk by several animals that are commonly considered vermin. Beatrice the fox daintily crosses her paws, Arthur the mole stares blindly out of his gleaming, sequined eyes, while John the piebald rat sniffs at the ground, his long tail raised like a middle finger. Are these official participants in the show, or interlopers who’ve clambered up from their dark dens, tunnels and sewers, to feast on whatever morsels they can find here, be it a crumb of attention, or a half-eaten doggie treat?
The exhibition’s title, Love Love Love, recalls a dashed-off comment beneath an Instagram post. As that platform’s users will know, this affirmation might be applied equally to an image of a cat lover’s new kitten, or to a painter’s latest canvas (‘#WIP’). An accompanying text draws a parallel between pet shows and the functioning of the contemporary art world, and the implication is that we should read Fischli’s knowingly makeshift sculptures as proxies for the figure of the emerging artist – a fundamentally half-formed creature who’s been given just enough grooming to pass muster as a contender. Looking at the catwalk, a space of both performance and of judgement, we wonder if it will be a pedigree pet who comes out on top, or one of the so-called vermin. In today’s artworld, class advantage is an increasingly vital precondition of success. Then again, the industry’s gatekeepers ‘love love love’ an exception that proves the rule.
Needy, obedient, self-regarding and full of very human pathos, Fischli’s competing critters hit their satirical target. What’s missing, here, is a reckoning with those who pick the winners, and those who profit from the whole dog and pony show. Elsewhere in the gallery, a tall freestanding plinth supports Florence, the most abstract work in the exhibition – a globule of plaster, grey dishcloth fabric and Day-glo orange feathers, which vaguely resembles a garden bird eviscerating a slug. We might cast her as the victor of a previous contest, enjoying her spoils on the podium while looking down her beak at the other, marginally less scruffy beasts flaunting themselves on the catwalk. Primped for public presentation, and hungry for approval, to her they must feel like gauche pretenders to her crown.