Contemporary art

Afrikan Spir

Josephine Meckseper

Afrikan Spir is a vitrine work by the German-born artist Josephine Meckseper, a steel-and-glass display case holding a stuffed bird, glass vessels, paintings and objects, named after the 19th-century Russian philosopher Afrikan Spir.

Artist: Josephine Meckseper
Medium: Mixed media in steel and glass vitrine
Movement: Contemporary art

Power & History

Afrikan Spir is a sculpture by Josephine Meckseper, the German-born, New York-based artist (born 1964) known for display cases that mix consumer goods, political imagery and modernist design. It takes its title from Afrikan Aleksandrovich Spir (1837–1890), a Russian-born philosopher who wrote in German. It has been described as the largest of three Meckseper vitrines shown at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, but its date and current owner have not been confirmed.

What you are looking at

A tall, minimal vitrine stands on four slender steel legs, its upper part a glass box with a mirrored back and a strip of fluorescent light along the top. A lower shelf of bare steel bars sits empty. Inside, on a single grey shelf, objects are arranged in a row like goods in a shop window: at left a stuffed black bird, a crow or raven, beside a clear glass vessel and a sculptural form with dark, spiky protrusions; a tall black panel at center; a narrow vase patterned in black and white; a small painting of colored diamond shapes in red, blue and grey; and at right a glass sphere and a pale, brushy panel.

Nothing is labeled, and the objects have no obvious connection. The display's cool, polished frame makes them look precious and for sale, while their mix, part natural history, part design shop, part painting studio, resists any single reading.

The vitrine as a form

Meckseper's vitrines borrow from department store windows, museum cases and the display design of the Bauhaus era. Her early vitrines commented directly on consumer culture and protest; later ones, in steel and glass, combine modernist objects, paintings that echo Russian Constructivism and found items. The case turns everything inside into merchandise, inviting viewers to think about how politics and ideas, as well as products, are packaged.

The title adds another layer. Spir's book Denken und Wirklichkeit (Thought and Reality) influenced Friedrich Nietzsche, and naming a sleek luxury display after an obscure idealist philosopher is typical of Meckseper's dry irony.

Related works

Other works by Meckseper in the catalogue include Filmtract Nº1, Masculine Feminine and Here and Elsewhere. More on the artist at Josephine Meckseper.

Questions & answers

Who was Afrikan Spir?

Afrikan Aleksandrovich Spir (1837–1890) was a Russian-born philosopher who lived mostly in Germany and Switzerland and wrote in German. His main work, Denken und Wirklichkeit (Thought and Reality), dealt with identity and the nature of reality and was read closely by Friedrich Nietzsche.

What is in Josephine Meckseper's Afrikan Spir?

The steel-and-glass vitrine contains a row of objects on a single shelf: a stuffed black bird, glass vessels, a dark spiky form, a black panel, a patterned vase, a small geometric painting and a glass sphere. Displayed like shop goods, they suggest how culture and politics are packaged for consumption.

Where was Afrikan Spir shown?

It has been described as the largest of three Meckseper vitrines presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, where her work appeared in the group exhibition Storylines in 2015. The vitrine's date and current owner have not been confirmed.

More by the artist

Josephine Meckseper

All works →

A woman with glossy blond hair against pale blue, her face and shoulders obliterated by torn, streaked fragments of black-and-white and red printed imagery — Josephine Meckseper, May she. Have hear. Birds., 2016 — May she. Have hear. Birds.
Josephine Meckseper · 2016

A mirrored room with a steel bed, seated mannequins, chandeliers, bottles, a drying rack and red scrawled words reflected endlessly — Josephine Meckseper, Scene VI, 2019 — Scene VI
Josephine Meckseper · 2019

A square framed panel of gray-violet tinted acrylic over a black splattered grid, yellow and black strokes, a photo of a white rabbit and a small collage — Josephine Meckseper, Masculine Feminine — Masculine Feminine
Josephine Meckseper

A dark wall shelf holding whiskey bottles, shot glasses and cocktail glasses in front of a black-and-white gestural abstract painting — Josephine Meckseper, Here and Elsewhere — Here and Elsewhere
Josephine Meckseper

A tall white panel splashed with red paint and crossed by thick black vertical bars, small black rectangles around the frame like film sprockets — Josephine Meckseper, Filmtract Nº1 — Filmtract Nº1
Josephine Meckseper

A raw industrial hall holds a gold-framed vitrine of arranged objects on a white wall, a black and red oil pump jack sculpture and a wall-sized black-and-white photograph — Josephine Meckseper, solo exhibition, Nantes, 2019 — Solo Exhibition
Josephine Meckseper · 2019

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Diego Velázquez · 1656

Dozens of ancient philosophers gather on marble steps beneath vast arched vaults, with Plato and Aristotle walking at the center — Raphael, The School of Athens, 1509–1511 — The School of Athens
Raphael · 1509–1511

A bare-breasted woman in a red cap raises the French tricolor and a musket over a barricade of bodies as armed Parisians follow her through the smoke — Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830 — Liberty Leading the People
Eugène Delacroix · 1830

A man in a dark green coat stands with his back to us on a rocky summit, leaning on a cane and gazing over mountains half-hidden in a sea of fog — Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, c. 1817 — Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
Caspar David Friedrich · c. 1817

A captain in black and a lieutenant in gold lead a crowd of militiamen with muskets, pikes and a flag out of a dark archway into the light — Rembrandt, The Night Watch, 1642 — The Night Watch
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A headless winged marble goddess in wind-swept drapery strides forward on the prow of a stone ship at the top of a grand staircase — Winged Victory of Samothrace, c. 200–190 BC — Winged Victory of Samothrace
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Desperate survivors heaped on a storm-tossed raft strain toward a man waving a cloth at a tiny ship on the horizon, the dead slipping into the sea — Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1818–1819 — The Raft of the Medusa
Théodore Géricault · 1818–1819

A dead man with a white head cloth slumps in a bathtub, one arm hanging to the floor with a quill, a letter in his other hand, before a dark empty wall — Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat, 1793 — The Death of Marat
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