{"data":{"id":"10149","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":10149,"topgoose_id":1416,"tms_id":10149,"display_name":"Josephine Meckseper","sort_name":"Meckseper Josephine","display_date":"1964–","begin_date":"1964","end_date":"0","biography":"\u003cp\u003eJosephine Meckseper left Germany in\n1990 to attend the California Institute\nof the Arts and moved to New York, where\nshe is still based, in 1992. Her stay in\nSouthern California had a profound\nimpact on the development of her practice,\nwhich examines links between politics,\ncorporate capitalism, and consumerism.\nThe shopping malls, car culture, and\nsocial unrest that were part of Meckseper’s\nexperience in Los Angeles inform the\ncontent of her photographs, films, videos,\ninstallations, paintings, and sculpture.\nShe is perhaps best known for her displays\nof invented shopping vitrines that\nshe began in 2000 and that she frequently\nexhibits alongside imagery of political\ndemonstrations, suggesting scenarios of\ncause and effect. As Meckseper\nhas unequivocally explained, “The basic\nfoundation of my work is a critique\nof capitalism.”\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\nFor\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/27345\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Complete History\nof Postcontemporary Art\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, Meckseper\nassembled a discordant array of commercial\nproducts and political symbols. (One of\nthe latter, held by a stuffed and rotating\nrabbit, alludes to France’s 2005 referendum\non the EU constitution.) The stylized\ndisplay references both a department store\nwindow and an ethnographic museum,\npresenting a range of juxtapositions—what\nshe referred to as the “contradictions\nand absurdities” of the objects exhibited.\nHer critique foregrounds the persistent\nconflation of consumption, politics, and art—\na point underscored by the work’s title.\n\u003cem\u003eThe Complete History of Postcontemporary\nArt\u003c/em\u003e asserts that consumer manipulation\nextends to recent art, articulating the\nartist’s belief that “contemporary art today\ntends to be complicit in the prevailing\nrapacious market economy.”\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500126087","wikidata_id":"Q92498","created_at":"2017-08-30T16:23:28.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-11T07:02:36.430-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/10149/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/10149/exhibitions"}}}}