Sean Fletcher and Isabel Reichert

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Sean Fletcher (b. May 13, 1970) and Isabel Reichert (b. November 30, 1967) are a collaborative artist couple working in conceptual art and performance art. They have also created physical works of art in video, photography, print, and sound, though always with a conceptual focus.

Contents

[edit] Background

Fletcher studied at Rutgers University [4], New Brunswick, New Jersey under Martha Rosler and Geoffrey Hendricks. Reichert studied in Saarbrueken, Germany at the Hochschule der Bildenden Kuenste Saar under Jochen Gerz and Ulrike Rosenbach. Both relocated to San Francisco in 1995 and met while completing their graduate work at the San Francisco Art Institute [5].

Fletcher and Reichert began collaborating shortly after they met. As artists, they share a common interest in purely intangible forms of art and have developed a niche by expanding the research of Allan Kaprow on the intersection of life and art.[1]

The couple’s relationship is an integral part of their art-making practice and they frequently include their debates, arguments and even marital disputes in the work. Through collaborating they have formulated a process which integrates the psychological defense mechanism of displacement. Consequently, the narrative thread within Fletcher and Reichert’s work often contains subtle metaphors for other more focused concerns (political concerns, pop culture concerns, or socio-economic concerns). These metaphors provide another level of interpretation for the art, effectively "displacing" the original perceptions of the viewer.

Unlike most other conceptual artists, the goal of Fletcher and Reichert is to look beyond the concept to other intangible media, usually emotions. Where Sol LeWitt manipulated the perceptions of the viewer (i.e. pressing them to complete the shape of a cube), Fletcher and Reichert attempt to manipulate the emotional rather than the intellectual space with their performances.

As with Kaprow and other Fluxus artists, the delineation between the performers and the audience is usually unclear. Frequently the work expands beyond the confined boundaries of the gallery and situates itself in “real Life”.

[edit] Examples of Prior Work

In one of their first collaborations called Therapy (1998) [2] the artists hired a couples' counselor to carry out a therapy session in an effort to mend the relationship between the artists and their audience.

Bait (2000) was a performance conducted on the online bartering site EBay. For this piece the artists auctioned the rights to name their first-born child in EBay’s ART category. During this historic period of irrational exuberance[3] , several other expecting parents followed with similar actions though intentionally lacking Fletcher and Reichert's artistic sensibility.

In Selling Yourself and Not Your Art (2003) [4] the artists hired an instructor from the Dale Carnegie School of Sales and Management (Dale Carnegie Training) to co-present a seminar on how to be a "successful artist". The seminar posited notions of artistic integrity against the common practices of corporate America by presenting the audience -- comprised mostly of artists -- with the sort of "sales techniques" usually taught to members of the business world.

In their video titled Proceedings (2004), Fletcher and Reichert argue the evidence presented in the double murder trial of Scott Peterson in real-time in front of a video camera. More than just presenting the facts behind the courtroom drama, the video illustrates Fletcher and Reichert's own personal relationship, and presents another side of society’s insatiable appetite for courtroom drama.

In Paparazzi Photographs (2006) the artist hired a professional paparazzi photographer to follow them around for a day while they staged several ordinary looking situations such as lounging on the beach, ordering fast food at a drive-thru window and jogging in the park. The work reflects America’s obsession with stardom suggested by the esthetic quality (such as a long focal length) of the pictures taken.

For an entire year, Fletcher and Reichert privatized their lives and operated under the fiscal constraints of an official subchapter S corporation called Death and Taxes, Inc. (2006). A 15 member board of directors assumed the fiduciary role of figuring out how the artists should juggle their expenditures and continue to justify their unprofitable artwork to the IRS. [5]

[edit] Selected online bibliography


[edit] References

  1. ^ Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life, by Allan Kaprow, edited by Jeff Kelley, published 2003 by University of California Press
  2. ^ Therapy, performed at Southern Exposure (art space), [1] San Francisco, CA 1998 [2]
  3. ^ Irrational Exuberance, a quote from former Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Alan Greenspan and a book by Yale University Economist Robert Shiller, (c) Princeton University Press 2000
  4. ^ Selling Yourself and Not Your Art, performed at New Langton Arts, San Francisco, CA 2003 [3]
  5. ^ A detailed website which chronicles this project can be found at http://www.mydeathandtaxes.com.

[edit] External links