SITUATION #175

The Instagram performance Success Is Just a Smile Away (2013–) by German conceptual artist Andy Kassier is primarily concerned with issues of self-marketing on social media. With a healthy dash of irony, conveyed in overstated selfies and overmotivated captions, Kassier exposes the deceptive world of self-dramatisation and the depraved ideals of influencers who act as role models day in, day out on online platforms. They express themselves in an increasingly uniform visual language of prosperity by posing with money and luxury items – the flaunting and simultaneous exploitation of their own bodies for the mere sake of clicks and likes, an over-egged striving for success and an almost compulsive self-optimisation.

For SITUATIONS/Porn, the artist created the ASMR video tutorial You Were Born to Stand Out – An Intimate ASMR Selfie Tutorial with Andy Kassier as a guide to taking the perfect selfie. In a few, simple steps, visitors can learn how to achieve media recognition thanks to an acoustically stimulating demonstration and then apply this directly next to a life-size cardboard stand-up of Andy Kassier.

More by Andy Kassier: andykassier.com; instagram.com/andykassier