MULTIPLE | ALEXANDRA BIRCKEN

Multiple (2017) is an installation created by Alexandra Bircken, a German artist who lives and works between Munich and Berlin. Bircken attended courses for fashion designer – a path that emerges from the type of objects chosen for her installations – and the research she carries out investigates the relationship between the human body and its shell. Multiple presents itself as light wooden wardrobe with simple features, 2 meters high and with the doors open. The internal walls, as well as the doors, the base and the ceiling are covered with mirrors. Inside, hanging from a steel pole by crutch, there is a deflated pink latex mannequin, collapsed on itself. The appearance would seem rather anonymous, as it has no facial features and its surface is smooth, but by observing it better we can notice a double gender identity: the chest recalls that of a female figure, the genitals instead are those of a male figure. A stuffed fox, such as splendid as melancholic, is crouched at the mannequin feet and looks at it.

Through her installations, Bircken investigates the boundary between body and shell that covers it, between inside and outside, between spectator and protagonist. Gender identity is the focus and the relationship between power and vulnerability becomes the narrative to investigate it.
In folklore imagery, the fox is symbolically associated with cunning and deception, but inside this wardrobe it assumes a sad position that suggest submission. Also, its gaze is not turned to the viewer but to the mannequin, so that it’s possible to identify the real protagonist of this staging. A charismatic figure able to focus the attention on itself, but at the same time empty and weak.
Deflated mannequins often inhabit Bircken’s installations. Are they helpless and passive protagonists or entities trapped between the different dimensions that characterize the artworks? Maybe they could be the wearing clothes to explore artist’s universe boundaries in order to make the best of her artworks or, in this specific case, representing the classic skeleton in the closet?

Multiple is itself a meta-title that introduces the multiplicity concept, which the installation is filled. Mirrors take the viewer inside the artwork, changing its reality and dimension. The perspective turns and the reflection becomes the pivot of this change.

Alexandra Bircken
Multiple, 2017
Wood, glue, mirror, stuffed fox, deflated figure (rosa), 200 x 90 x 56 cm
Installation view at Unruhe, Wiener Secession, Wien
Courtesy BQ, Berlin and the artist © Photo: Sophie Thun

31/05/2023