Carly Fischer: I Didn`t Come Here To Be a Tourist

Herzliche Einladung zur Eröffnung: Samstag, 07.03.09, 17-22h

Carly Fischer is a Berlin-based visual artist (born Melbourne, Australia 1978). Her work spans sculpture, installation, photography and social research and seeks to question normative structures and representations that are produced and readily accepted in an increasingly globalised world. She is interested in the idea of reproduction and how our world is being slowly stolen and sold back to us through irony as replica and commodity. Much of her work deals with replicating elements from surrounding urban environments as paper models. This replication attempts to both mimic and mock the processes of hyper-efficiency and hyper-production which surround her, as well as comment on contemporary expectations of perfection. Fischer's work is influenced by Nicolas Bourriaud?s idea that one must inhabit the form of what one wants to criticise, copying being the ultimate form of subversion. As almost pointless replicas, her sculptures intend to reflect on their and therefore our own futility and insecurities in a world that is increasingly streamlining the relationship between objects, spaces and people. In her titles and also in her social research projects, Fischer explores personal vulnerability as the last voice left in a system of circular recuperation and commodification.

In I didn't come here to be a tourist at KWADRAT (Berlin), Fischer presents 3 new installations that specifically reference Berlin as a place where even dysfunction has been recuperated and commodified. 'Tillmanesque' images of Berlin in glossy books and on postcards romanticise and fetishise abandoned wastelands and construction sites as desirable tourist attractions. Fischer explores this idea of reproduction and it's resultant expectation by creating idealised paper models of destruction that mimic the perfection of postcards. As objects reminiscent of sculptural maquettes or architectural models that would usually preclude something final, the paper sculptures perform a reversal of the normative progression towards an outcome, suggesting the pre-existing model as the preferred choice, as the postcard is the preferred choice. In a future projection, in which gentrification has erased the original fragments, perhaps such models would melt seamlessly into the reality of our expectations on the street. In I didn't come here to be a tourist Fischer reflects on the tenuous situation of the tourist (herself included) who is caught in between critiquing this system of reproduction and commodification while at the same time playing an active part in its construction.

Kurzbio der Künstlerin Carly Fischer:

CARLY FISCHER - ARTIST CV Born in 1978 in Melbourne, Australia Education 2000 BA Honours (Fine Art-Sculpture) RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia 1997-1999 BA (Fine Art-Painting) RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia Residency Programs 2008 Schmeide Artist-in-Residence, Hallein, Austria 2003 St Michaels Grammar School Artist-in-Residence Program, Melbourne, Australia Grants and Prizes 2008 Recipient of the New Work Grant (Australia Council) Finalist for Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, Sydney, Australia 2007 Recipient of the Janet Holmes a Court Artist Grant (NAVA/Australia Council) 2007/2006 Finalist for Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, Sydney, Australia 2006 Finalist for ABN AMRO Emerging Artist Award, Melbourne, Australia 2003/2002 Finalist for Fundere Sculpture Prize, Melbourne, Australia 2002 Recipient of the Pat Corrigan Artist's Grant (NAVA/Australia Council) Gallery Helen Gory Galerie (Melbourne, Australia) Collections Private collections in Australia, Japan and Germany

Solo Exhibitions 2009 I didnt come here to be a tourist, KWADRAT, Berlin, Germany 2007 Its because we cant stop that we do it, Victoria Park Gallery, Melbourne, Australia Its because were all the same that were blue, Helen Gory Galerie, Melbourne, Australia Just Passing Through, Platform Space, Melbourne, Australia 2005 Set Menu, Design Festa Gallery, Tokyo, Japan 2004 SKWOT, KINGS Artist Run Initiative, Melbourne, Australia 2004 Straight from the Skwot, Little Salon, Melbourne, Australia 2002 The time it takes for paint to drop in coloured yarn, West Space, Melbourne, Australia 2001 DFNKT, Bus, Melbourne, Australia 2000 Behind the scenes, Swanston Artspace, Melbourne, Australia

Group Exhibitions 2008 .BHC, Berlin, Germany "Knorke Gören" (by Martin Kwade), KWADRAT, Berlin, Germany Confusion, Studio 23, Berlin, Germany Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, Woollahra Council Chambers, Sydney, Australia 2008/2007 Linden Postcard Show, Linden St Kilda Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia 2007 The Flag Project, Majorca House Windows, Melbourne, Australia 2007/2006 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, Woollahra Council Chambers, Sydney, Australia 2006 ABN AMRO Emerging Artist Award, ABN AMRO Building, Melbourne, Australia 2005 Luminous 2, Helen Gory Galerie, Melbourne, Australia Arts Victoria, Melbourne, Australia One Night Only, AREA Contemporary Art Inc., Melbourne, Australia 2004/2003 Linden Postcard Show, Linden St Kilda Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia A4 Show, West Space, Melbourne, Australia 2003/2002 Fundere Sculpture Prize Exhibition, Yarra Sculpture Gallery Melbourne, Australia 2002 A4 Show, West Space, Melbourne, Australia 2002 Fresh, Bus, Melbourne, Australia Collaborative Projects 2008 Wasting Time, Schmeide Artist-in-residence, Hallein, Austria (with Mieko Suzuki) 2006 Are You Here?, Nakaochiai Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (with Jack Mclean) 2004 Hole in the Bucket, CLUBSproject Inc, Melbourne 2003 Abject Arousal, Conical, Melbourne, Australia (with Susan Jacobs, curated by Angela Brophy) 2002 Shelf Life, Seventh Gallery, Melbourne, Australia (with Geneine Honey) 2001 Arting Around, George Paton Gallery, Melbourne, Australia (with Geneine Honey) Selected Bibliography 2007 Marcus Keating, Process, Production and the Invisable Line: Carly Fischer, Artlink- Work, vol. 27 no. 4, 2007 Megan Bakhouse, Its because were all the same that we`re blue in Art Around the galleries, The Age, 27/10/2007 Megan Bakhouse, Just Passing Through in Art Around the galleries, The Age, 3/2/2007 Andrew Stephens, Over the Rainbow, The Sunday Age Magazine, 27/1/2007 2006 Katherine Pham Do, Jack Mclean and Carly Fischer- Are you here? in Art Brief, The Japan Times, 20/4/2006 2003 Angela Brophy, Abject Arousal (catalogue accompanying the exhibition Abject Arousal, Conical, (Melbourne, Australia)

Carly Fischer
I Didn`t Come Here To Be a Tourist
Veranstallter: Martin Kwade im KWADRAT