Say Cheese is a one-to-one interaction
Marcus Fisher has been Ashery’s alter ego in the early 2000s. The work has been a search to connect with the artist own maternal lineage – a Jewish orthodox family based in the religious Jewish neighbourhoods in central west Jerusalem. The work investigated amongst other things projections, othering and prejudice towards religious Jews in European, American and British contexts.
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:
Essay: Matt Wolf, ‘Passing as Marcus Fisher’, Heeb Magazine (November 2004)
Essay: Rachel Paige Katz, ‘Marcus and Rrose: Cross-Dressing, Alter-Egos, and the Artist’ (2008)
Interview: Mojca Kumerdej, ‘In bed with Marcus Fisher’, 2002 (Text in Slovenian)
Review: Cherry Smyth, ‘Say Cheese, Home – Salon 17′, Circa (Spring 2002)
Review: Emma Smith, ‘Unorthodox art gets live airing’, Western Daily Press (February 2003)
Additional project information: A Thousand Endless Tales – Dancing the Line of Flight
Additional project information: Made in Israel blog
Additional project information: e-2
Additional project information: Home Live Art
Additional project information: Performance 2003, Foxy Productions