Artist Michele Fuirer

reviews

"At first sight Michèle Fuirer's sculptures look like a respectful homage to minimalism. An overlong steel trestle table evokes the cool geometry of a Donald Judd and its illogical proportions mimic his playful relationship with functionalism. A thin channel of oil cuts through the length of the table like a scaled-down Richard Wilson, but here the resemblance to her male precursors comes to an abrupt end. The oil is not industrial oil but cooking oil and the marble surface which it intersects turns out to be a flawless layer of flour. Here she is shifting into the territory of feminist irony so perfectly exemplified by Bobby Baker's edible masterpieces. (...) It may well be that it is a mistake to take these social metaphors too literally. Fuirer is also referring to a state of mind and the shifting play of opposites that constitutes a gendered individual. Her table is both hard and soft, liquid and solid, a container and contained by the substance of flour. The conventional attributes of a malleable, domestic femininity co-exist with the rationalism inherent in the masculine love of ordered space'.
Catherine Elwes review in Art Monthly, 1995. Solo exhibition, Cafe Gallery London

"The two mirrors making up Ein Paar (1995 and 2002) are both covered - one with goatskin, another with cotton threads. The latter resembles hair, which in this case hides the viewer from their own face. Both create a personality by the denial of the viewer's identity. For CURIO Fuirer returned to mirrors, but allowed them their reflective function, and used them to encourage the viewer to reflect. There were five fixed along the length of the street, each one carrying a word or words. (...) They encouraged the viewer to 'speculate', 'spectate', 'survey' and 'regard', linguistic terms reflecting the function of the objects themselves. (...). Looking into the convex mirror you saw yourself, the spectator's gaze was turned back on itself, and was confronted by the idea of what it is to be looked at and evaluated'.
Richard Stemp,' Where's the Art?'
Catalogue essay for CURIO - disrupting the tourist zone, terra incognita 2003. Curated by Alana Jelinek.