Cassidy Toner : Almost Xerox

Humour is scarce in the arts, but with Cassidy, it almost becomes its own medium as well as a weapon. Through her work, she explores comic tropes and genres as a strategy to reflect back on the art world, its absurdities and her own professional itinerary as an artist. Staging herself or an alter-ego in her works, she turns art into a wannabe comedy show where she’s her own character trying to make it as an artist. And, like in good sitcoms, failure becomes the essential trigger for cathartic laughter. Cassidy’s works are often quite self-explanatory and this should come as no surprise. Indeed, it is common knowledge that the more you try to make sense of a joke the less funny it becomes. Here, laughter simply appears as the best response to an art world that often takes itself way too seriously, but it is also a powerful tool, as corrosive as it is unifying, to alleviate the numbing anxiety fuelled by the success imperative of a highly competitive milieu that made a specialty of disguising its arbitrariness and bias under the pretence of merit. What Cassidy seems to do with her art is to anticipate her own fails and to preventively laugh about it, with us. It is as generous as it is sometimes hermetic, and you’re all welcome to join us for a good laugh. Text by Simon Würsten Marin