Marcus Fisher | Say Cheese

Say Cheese is a one-to-one interaction between Marcus Fisher, Ashery’s alter ego, and audience/participants. The interaction time was limited to three minutes, during which Marcus facilitated any kind of exchange with participants – confessional, sexual, playful, performative, conversational, psychological – apart from causing or receiving pain. While on the bed, participants were asked to hold a shutter-release cable, which they pressed whenever they wanted. Photographs were sent to the participants a month later. Say Cheese provided an experimental space for constructed intimacies, projections and fictions to take place.

Say Cheese was performed in seven cities between 2001-3: In curator Laura Godfrey Isaacs’ bedroom at Salon 17, Home, London, November 2001 / In NBK Gallery curator Wibke Behren’s bedroom, Berlin, January 2002 / In a hotel room, an off-site project curated by Jurij Krpan of Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana, May 2002 / In a hotel room, an off-site project of the Bluecoat Art Centre at the Liverpool Biennial, curated by the Bluecoat and the Live Art Development Agency, Liverpool, September 2002 / In a constructed bedroom at Arnolfini, part of the In Between Time festival, curated by Helen Cole, Bristol, February 2003 / In a constructed bedroom at the OK Center for Contemporary Art, part of the group show The Promise, The Land, curated by Thomas Edlinger, Stella Rollig and Roland Schöny, Linz, March 2003 / In the bedroom of the curators Michael Gillespie and John Thomson at Foxy Production gallery, part of Ashery’s solo show, New York, July 2003.

Links/Downloads:

Additional project information: 7 Acts of Love dedicated project website

Essay: Oreet Ashery, ‘In and Out of Love with Marcus Fisher – an alter ego and an art project’, Jewish Masculinities

Essay: Rohini Malik Okon, ‘Oreet Ashery/Marcus Fisher’, The Promise, The Land Catalogue, OK Centre for Contemporary Art, Linz, also published in Performing Difference, Artsadmin, 2003

Essay: Matt Wolf, ‘Passing as Marcus Fisher’, Heeb Magazine (November 2004)

Essay: Dorothy Rowe, ‘Biography and spatial experience in contemporary diasporic art in Britain’ in Arnold, D and Sofaer, J (eds.), Biographies and Space (London and New York, Routledge, 2007)

Essay: Rachel Paige Katz, ‘Marcus and Rrose: Cross-Dressing, Alter-Egos, and the Artist’ (2008)

Essay: Artur Kamczycki, ‘Marcus Fisher and the Jewish Third Gender’, Artluk (March 2008) (Text in Polish)

Interview: Mojca Kumerdej, ‘In bed with Marcus Fisher’, 2002 (Text in Slovenian)

Interview: Charlotte Huddleston, ‘One-to-One: Distance and Proximity’, Visit No. 8 (Govett-Brewster Art Gallery Publications: Summer/Autumn 2006)

Interview: Rachel Zerihan, ‘One to One Performance’, Live Art Development Agency Study Room Guide, 2009

Review: Cherry Smyth, ‘Say Cheese, Home – Salon 17′, Circa (Spring 2002)