Robert F. Hammerstiel

Selected Works     Biography     Press Release

	http://www.hammerstiel.net
	Rex

February 24 - March 31, 2001

Robert F. Hammerstiel's work dwells in the familiar, arising perhaps from a casual glance or an interest in scarcely noticed everyday phenomena. Hammerstiel removes subjects from their natural settings and recontextualizes them in group works and installations. The work, rather than focusing on precise representation of real objects, emphasizes the perceptual and associative relationship between viewer and depiction.

Hammerstiel's photographic investigations examine background, the visual scenery that informs our conceptions of happiness, intimacy, and privacy. Viewers, all too accustomed to the role this background plays in defining their experiences, often remain unaware of its importance as a surface for projecting wishes and emotions.

The thematically organized work of Hammerstiel's recent past may be seen as descriptive catalogues of conflicts between our conditioning as social animals and our desire for protected intimacy. The work begins with the observation that in the realm of images and objects man is an unconscious actor rather than a director in full command; Hammerstiel asks to what extent an individual can express his or her identity through the objects they choose to surround them.

A complex tension is generated between unique images and their serial production; the individual motifs provide the foundation for explorations and inquiries into the mechanisms of representation and their resultant physical manifestations. These issues of representation (symbolism, possession, production, functionality) and the subtext behind their physical counterparts (artificiality, pretense, imitation) are recurrent themes in Hammerstiel's work.

In this work, Hammerstiel juxtaposes dog leads with portraits of dog owners, portraits of dogs with syringes used to implant identification microchips, and a variety of plastic toys for dogs. Ensembles develop from photographs and objects. A subtly satirical commentary addresses issues at many scales from the personal to the global; emotional dependence, desire for power and subjugation, channeling emotions through the promise of the world of mass production, and the threat of the impending spread of technologies of absolute control are among the topics.

The lead, physically and visually analogous to a noose, describes the relationship between master and dog, referencing western attitudes towards nature or the individual's desire for an object to love and dominate.

Hammerstiel presents a complicit link between society and an industry which thrives on dogs and their owners. From the production of food to the marketing of toys, there is a legible anthropomorphization of the animal. The microchip implanted beneath the skin of the dogs can be read as an expression of this humanization because, as does a fingerprint or genetic code, it testifies to the individuality of the bearer, yet Hammerstiel's work makes us aware that it only confirms the existence of a product and its location within a system.