#totems-and-taboos

#vaporfolk // TOTEMS AND TABOOS

#vaporfolk is not invoking the psychoanalytic theories of Vienna’s Sigmund Freud. From an artist’s and anthropologist’s standpoint, we cannot even agree on his pejorative analysis. However, as hyper-neurotic prosumers and decolonialized third wavers, we like Totem and Taboo’s catchy title, and assign this chapter to the subliminal controversies in animistic practices. We carry out a spiritual epistemic disobedience that builds its matrix from half-truths and fake facts made from chocolate.

(Note on art history: This chapter of #vaporfolk seeks to exorcize art from twentieth century’s inhuman doctrines and violent rifts. The use of chocolate as material in art has become well known in post-war Germany. Beuys’ comment on Ready-Mades in Das Schweigen von Marcel Duchamp wird überbewertet (1964) or his chocolate butt prints, Dieter Roth’s Coquillen-Zwerge (1968/69) lead to controversy and critical reflection of its symbolic value (Wyss 2008). Chocolate as colonial good expresses, however, a much wider context. It holds pleasure in sensual experience – for everyone – and simultaneously builds on centuries of pain, suffering and exploitation. These layers are to be managed with pseudo-ritualistic technologies and obsessive superstitions.

/ Litref. Beat Wyss: Nach den grossen Erzählungen (2009), Beuys – Der ewige Hitlerjunge (2008)

WORKSHOP 1 Decolonial Communion 2019
Commissioned work, site specific process
Melted chocolate or prop (paraffin), various local materials
Size variable (max. 100 x 100 x 50 cm)

WORKSHOP 2 Thinking with your knee (invoking Beuys) 2019
Neo-tribal body-prosthetics
Chocolate, sugar coating, icing pearls
Commissioned work, site specific process
Size variable (max. 100 x 100 x 50 cm)

Artists: Peter Moosgaard, Lona Gaikis, Bernhard Garnicnig, TBA

Text: Lona Gaikis