Tobias Kaspar
Tobias Kaspar was born in 1984 in Basel and lives in Riga and Zurich.
Tobias Kaspar’s practice raises questions about how to behave in today’s mainstream society; how, when and under what circumstances, one can curve out a space of one’s own, and thus question this very ambition in itself. Kaspar work exemplifies a strategy that uses appearance in different economies to reflect and question the artist’s own position and the position we are in at large. Through juxtaposition it offers insights into how different systems of value production function. Kaspar’s practice is informed by an interest in how object, image, text, form and content relate to each other. Tobias Kaspar’s artworks are an ongoing investigation of the semantic connotations of images and objects. Fabric and garments are returning motifs along with issues concerning identity building and so-called ‘subjectivity’ in our society.
Since 2012 the artist has his own namesake jeans line and is co-founder of PROVENCE, which opened in 2009 in Basel with an exhibition with works by John Knight and a survey on Ghislain-Mollet Viéville’s practice in advertising. In 2015 Tobias Kaspar opened at Berlin’s Udolpho the pop-up store Toby’s Tristram Shandy Shop in reference to Laurence Sterne’s book “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman,” and presented the installation and performance NY 1995 at ART Basel. 2013 Kaspar designed the costumes for Adam Linder’s ballet The Parade, which premiered the same year at the HAU Theatre in Berlin. In 2016 Kaspar staged The Street inside the Cinecittà Film Studios Rome, using an outdoor studio street as the setting for a 24h theme park.
Looking at this multifaceted practice and body of work to date one understands that at the core of his investigation is the notion of ‘the artist,’ taken as an exemplary figure. Yet Kaspar’s artistic practice consciously again and again alludes an exact categorisation in the very moment one thinks to grasp it.
Tobias Kaspar’s artworks are often conceived as larger bodies of works, titled; Lumpy Blue Sweater (2010), Bodies in the Backdrop (2012), The Bling Ring (2013), Friends, Lovers & Financiers (2014) and Two Cities - Two Lives (2015), The Street (2016), Anna Karenina (2017).
Kaspar work has been shown in institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2016), Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco (2015), Solo Shows, São Paulo (2015), CAFAM Biennale, Beijing (2014), Kunsthalle Wien (2014), Kunsthalle St. Gallen (2014), Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis (2013), Artists Space, New York (2013), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012), Kunsthalle Zürich (2011), Kunsthalle Basel (2011), Museum Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2011), Kunsthaus Bregenz (2011), Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2010).
Selected works
View: ,Rowing (Pink)
C-print, cottonpaper, passpartout, frame 85×77cm 2018
Coats (Strips, Dots and Diamonds)
C-print, cottonpaper, passpartout, frame 85×77cm 2018
Chez Maximes (Woman in Pink Dress, Two Men in Olive Coats)
C-print, cottonpaper, passpartout, frame 85×77cm 2018
Horse Racing (Salmon, Lavender, Plum)
C-print, cottonpaper, passpartout, frame 85×77cm 2018
Runway (Floral Camouflage)
C-print, cottonpaper, passpartout, frame 85×77cm 2018