Here and Elsewhere

Here and Elsewhere is a shelf-based work by Josephine Meckseper, an artist born in Germany in 1964 and based in New York. Meckseper is known for displays that borrow the look of shop windows and product shelves, mixing ordinary consumer goods with abstract art and political material, so that the language of advertising and the language of the gallery sit side by side. According to our records, this work combines glass bottles, silicone rubber, cigarettes, inkjet prints and mirrored acrylic sheeting arranged on three shelves; the photograph shows one of them.

What you are looking at

A single dark shelf is fixed to a white wall. On it, spaced out like goods in a minimalist boutique, stand three bottles of well-known whiskey brands, a row of small shot glasses, a martini glass, a stemmed cocktail glass filled with a dark liquid, and a small dish that may serve as an ashtray.

Behind the bottles leans a black-and-white painting in a tall format. It is made of thick, dragged brushstrokes of black: broad rectangles at the top, vertical bars with frayed edges, a smeared horizontal band near the bottom. The painting is close in look to gestural abstraction of the 1950s, but here it is propped up like a prop in a bar or a shop, at the same level as the bottles.

The whole display is monochrome, apart from the labels of the bottles. The arrangement is neat and symmetrical, and the photograph has the clean look of a product shot.

How to read it

Meckseper's displays are usually read as commentary on how consumer culture absorbs everything, including art and protest. By setting an expressive abstract painting next to branded liquor, she makes the two look interchangeable: both become lifestyle objects, signs of taste for sale. The title echoes Ici et ailleurs (Here and Elsewhere), a 1976 essay film by Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville about images, politics and the distance between viewers and events, though we have not found a statement from the artist confirming the reference.

The bar setting, with its whiskey and cocktail glasses, also suggests a familiar image of the hard-drinking modern male painter, which the display presents with cool detachment.

Where to see it

We have not been able to confirm the date or current owner of this work. Meckseper's displays have been shown internationally in galleries and museums. See her other works in our catalogue, including Masculine Feminine, Solo Exhibition and Afrikan Spir, and her page at Josephine Meckseper.