Playing hide-and-seek with art. About Amelie Bachfischer’s painting objects
Ramona Heinlein


“Adorable!”

adorable/adorable

Not managing to name the speciality of his desire for the loved being, the amorous subject falls back on this rather stupid word: adorable!1

A handful of nuts from a bag of trail mix, a single sage lozenge, a colorful tape with an outstanding mix or the odd key out that was left off the ring. These days, SINK is full of stuff – things that normally lie around at the bottom of your purse or at the bottom of a messy desk piled high; plucked out of a guilty conscience or the inexplicable pain of separation before being put away, for example under the sink – a kind of non-place where everything that doesn’t really belong anywhere finds a home, things you might use again someday, but not now, not tomorrow, not any time in particular. And yet you get this almost tender feeling you get when you look at these little leftovers, this perfect walnut for example – adorable!

To call something “adorable” is to make a compliment without an effort at sophistication; or with a failed one. Although warm and even heartfelt, this term of taste is also imbued with a certain minor-ness, something harmless, almost silly. Amelie Bachfischer’s painting objects acknowledge this questionable judgment call with a casual shrug of the shoulders; after all, quite deliberately they resemble banal everyday objects in a perplexing way. The cute goes hand in hand with the sentimental, the tongue-in-cheek with the trashy. Thrown together as they seem to be, these things add up to a still life with an almost nostalgic effect. In their isolated marginal existence, they all seem to be on their way to the bin or the belly – and in their transience, they are also immortalized. So it’s no surprise that the wristwatch is a recurring motif in Bachfischer’s work. Created during the lockdowns, various facial expressions of the artist decorate the dial, frowning at the stubborn passage of time.

Despite their apparent triviality, these objects are by no means meaningless. On the contrary, they open up multi-layered spaces for remembering. They can serve as the basis for spinning yarns and inevitably leave behind a certain taste on your tongue or feeling in your stomach. After all, Grandma used to keep lozenges like that in her jacket pocket for when your throat was scratchy. The forgotten key unlocks the basement of your cherished old apartment (but who knows if you really want to go back down there), and the tape recalls the way you used to listen to a story while falling asleep as a child. There is something intimate about these minor items, as if you were peering into one of those boxes of mementos stored in your parents’ attic long after you’ve left home.

Bachfischer is a painter, but one without a canvas. The traditional support is too serious, too loaded, too laborious to prep. The artist prefers objects made of wood or simple cardboard.  When painting sculptural forms, not all the pressure to express is on the act of painting alone. There is no apparent “nothing” to be filled, no leaden demands on the creator; instead, in Bachfischer’s work, the three-dimensional blanks predetermine the content. In addition to oil painting, an equally important part of the artistic process is cutting, gluing, and filing. Often mystified as a heroic act, painting is inextricably linked to the pair of hobby scissors you used to keep in your grade school pencil case. Despite the simple materials and mundane technique, the detailed workmanship of Bachfischer’s objects reflects their maker’s affectionate relationship with her subjects. The objects are both a playful understatement and virtuosos of illusionism. Consider the irritation caused by a perfectly imitated apple with a bite out of it: Has it been forgotten in the exhibition space or is it actually part of the installation?

Just as great feeling clashes with the curt delight of the “adorable”, so does handicraft with great art. While painting, as a producer of value par excellence, has both a luxurious commodity status and unique symbolic prestige, handicrafts are generally reserved for children’s birthday parties and weekend hobbies. Yet it is the serious struggle for an artistic career, the pressure to succeed, and the search for meaning that lurk behind the title of Bachfischer’s exhibition and the eponymous poem, “Post Mortem Career”.

“Now tell me why did I worry so much
about not sticking to my annual plan
Maybe alive I will never be famous
but post mortem – I still can”

These ironically morbid lines ask big questions: What will remain – postmortem and in general? How can one make a living from making art? What has significance? And when is something important and when is it “just” fun – adorable or avant-garde? Or is it possible to be both? “Of course!” comes the frank reply from Bachfischer’s objects, as they skillfully play hide-and-seek with art – while remaining precious in their idiosyncrasy.