Intense appropriation of a cosmetic consumer item and hacking onto existing narratives are recurring methods in Tobias Kaspar’s work. Aesop is a company that relies on “prestige branding” to market its healthy products, eschewing traditional advertisements, instead gaining notice for the design and placement of its products, communication and stores. Kaspar’s Incomplete Aesop takes up the variety and diversity of containers, bottle, tubes, dispensers, that the brand proudly displays in its windows. 

Kaspar casted The Incomplete Aesop in Riga, using for the glazing very little color, letting the casts remain mainly white like found ancient Greek sculptures. For the casts Tobias Kaspar used vintage porcelain (from 1970’s) from a well known porcelain manufactory in Sowjet Riga, the casts & glazing was made Spring 2018 in the Latvian porcelain school in Riga.

In keeping with the concept of building a legendary reputation, the company’s name derives from a Greek storyteller whose tales include lessons about kindness, responsibility and greed. In one such fable, “The Dog and His Shadow,” a hound crossing a river with a sausage in his mouth is confused by an illusory image of himself and loses his grip on reality. 

The Incomplete Aesop will be on view at the bookstore through the 21st October – along with the bronze group sculpture Boy, also from 2018, that appropriates a Chanel perfume sampler.

Prices on request. Please contact books@after8books.com.