Glam is perceived as extraordinary.
Why don’t we see the unusual, the flamboyant, the encore as glamourous in itself?
Subtle hints of fetish, BDSM clubs, and queer culture were always present in Fulterer & Scherrer’s work. Playing with the abstraction of different kinks and turn-ons, they continuously transform different materials and material combinations into their visual alphabet.
The titles and elements of GLAM are irritating: The tight-fitting spaghetti straps could be, eponymous to the works, those of a tank top or reminiscent of a light dress you wore that other night.
It would be made of leather, it would be dazzling.
Or is it bondage gear, straps, chains, or a naughty leather thong in the other work?
Wouldn’t that be incredible?
Or is it that designer’s – I forgot their name – iconic cut-out? Or that cheap-ass handbag…?
The exhibition draws a connection between what’s at the margins, be it admired or detested, be it a secret fetish or a fabulous dress; be it a public confession of your desires off the norm or the glittering manifestation of existing beyond the mundane life.
Thinking about their public appearance, leather gear and an evening gown have as much in common as separating them, no? Both exceed what’s part of an ordinary life.
But that’s the thing: what’s considered glamourous within that life, is not special.
GLAM is supposed to be the unexpected, the different, the outside.
Lemon chrome, mint and pastel tones blend, the party light’s on. The stretcher frame underneath screams all would be surface only. But drenched in tangerine, it shows how deep the layer goes.
Is it painting, sculpture, just frames, or mere fetish. Could that queer appearance even be glamourous?
Connecting the edges, with a leather strip and a delicate chain, hits different,
smoothly drawing the connection between extremes of high and low –
speaking of exclusion in the same way as of absolute adoration and obsession –, tender glam appears.
If glam is extraordinary, the extraordinary should be glam.
Maximilian Lehner 2023
