In Bret Easton Ellis’s fourth novel Glamorama (1998), the main character of the story, Victor Ward, leaves his life of Flatliners 2 scripts and VIP bars in New York to be propelled, in a Xanax haze, into a world of fashion infused terrorism and political conspiracy in Europe. In the last section of the book, set in Paris, Ellis makes it clear that Ward’s early embrace of the fashion world’s vanity was also a calculated acceptance of corruption and moral bankruptcy, allegorised in such a way that Goya’s black paintings would suit as illustrations. In his first exhibition at Emmanuel Perrotin gallery in Paris, German artist Michael Sailstorfer gave me flashbacks to Ellis’s novel and the sinister undertone that was generated when detailed descriptions of art and fashion events were combined with descriptions of car bombing victims and torture scenes.
‘No light’ featured Sailstorfer’s typical collection of disparate materials, treated in a way that cleverly reflected on the medium of their making and their function as metaphor. Collectively, the exhibition resembled a pessimistically themed VIP party that was set up and then aborted at the last minute—possibly due to a bomb threat. Black carpet was installed throughout most of the exhibition, littered with faint traces of popcorn that acted as confetti. The popcorn was the by-product of 1:43-47 (2009); essentially an aluminum popcorn machine missing a front glass window which was to prevent the popcorn from spilling out. The work stood alone in the room and its human dimensions gave the feeling that it was watching everything else going on around it, spitting bits of overcooked popcorn into a pile accumulating below.
In another space, six German poker machines, coated