Fichter Fishless in Mallorca

Mallorca is one of those places that can live up to its reputation splendidly.  The natural splendor here is simply magnificent, with glorious beaches that add the perfect compliment to any lifestyle.  For some people who live here, and who visit here, the sea is the center of things, physically and metaphorically.  Many people will swear that living close to the water can help to extend your years on the planet.  This may or may not be true, but there’s no doubt that it makes the days go by with a much greater sweetness than other places.  With all the natural gifts, there is also a spectacular culture here, or perhaps its better to say cultures.  There are many different walks of life that make up the population in Mallorca.  Hotels create their own cultures, and they’re constantly being invented with each new influx of guests.

The local culture is another thing altogether.  There are large pockets where the locals have been living here for generations, and many have memories of its past as a fishing village.  Others might remember it as a great port town.  And still others are expatriates who have come here to visit, and decided to make Mallorca their home.  There are many different stories about the amount of artists who live here, and different theories about why they stay, but no one can doubt that they’re inspired by the sea.  Artists coming through are also touched, and even though the sea is everywhere, there is something magical about this particular section of the ocean that does something wonderful to artists, it would seem.

Brooklyn-based Celeste Fichter has been here before with her ARTPORT project, and spent some time in Valparaiso in a residency, and her post-structural installation to Hemingway, 84 Days without a Fish, has the ocean all over it.  Her wildly humorous work investigates culture and memory at the intersections of the real, where what is represented and what is imagined become a Lacanian Cobb Salad with an extra egg.  The multiple meanings are delicious, and the idea last long in the imagined and real memory.

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