Stefan Brüggemann is keen on thinking up titles. So far he has compiled a list of 1,271 of them (‘Show Titles vol. #1’, 2000–6), creating for himself an index of imaginary exhibitions. One might begin, then, with the title of the present show: ‘Soap Box (A Decorative Form of Nihilism)’. A ‘soap box’ would suggest political declarations, the arts of rhetoric and public address, perhaps even the pathos of outmoded ideals. ‘A decorative form of nihilism’? Well, what else can one do with non-belief but inhabit it, display it as a mark of distinction, covering the walls with parerga abutting onto nothing in particular? We might describe Brüggemann first as a rhetorician of emptiness. But, working in the tradition of the dandy, he has also succeeded in dramatizing boredom, which opens ‘soap box’ to a rather different, more private set of connotations. – Tim Stott
See more artworks by Stefan Bruggemann here.
