FAITH IN FAKES LARGE AND SMALL
by Janice Li
‘We are giving you the reproduction so you will no longer feel any need for the original. But
for the reproduction to be desired, the original has to be idolised.’
- Umberto Eco, Hyperreality

Garniture/fake ginger jar (wip) | Photo by John Hersey | 2022

Artificialia 01 | Photo by Paul Mounsey | 2021
At a glance, Bridgette Ashton’s latest works such as Fake Ginger Jars (2021 - ongoing) and Artificialia (2018 - 2021) could appear as a departure from her earlier works, The Lost Cave (2015 - 2017), Worth’s Folly (2018), and Margate Subterranea (2011 - 2013), which are relatively monumental and situated in the public sphere. Her recent works come in smaller multiples, with roots in domestic collectibles. Though they are different in scale, something reads on the opposite ends of the same thread, whether that is intentional or subconscious. Before delving into the witty and sophisticated observations and provocations Ashton explores in her practice, it is significant to note how she ridicules with grace and humour one of the most bizarre phenomena of the modern world: the spectacle of tourism and souvenir collecting.
The chronicle of the Lascaux cave replicas is an exemplary case study of hyperreal tourism for Ashton. After a short spell as a tourist attraction from 1948 to 1963 since its rediscovery in 1940, the Lascaux Cave complex faced a critical conservation challenge — the parietal wall paintings covering the interior walls and ceilings of the Upper Palaeolithic caves rapidly deteriorated due to an unstable and polluting environment caused by the sudden influx of visitors in those 15 years. The solution was a series of exact replicas produced and displayed in the cave’s vicinity, just 200m away from the original cave, titled Lascaux II, Lascaux III and Lascaux IV, made with the same materials believed to be used 19,000 years ago. In cultural critic and philosopher Umberto Eco’s own pilgrimage to the United States in search of hyperreality, he came to the realisation these replicas, such as those of Lascaux, reach a status where they no longer pretend that they are imitating reality. Eco contends: within its magic enclosure it is fantasy that is absolutely reproduced’. It is this element of fantasy that Bridgette Ashton is revealing to us through her earlier works of large scale sculptures of touring replicas.

Margate Subterranea, Proposal For The Clifton Baths Experience | Bridgette Ashton | 2013
The Lost Cave (Model for Banqueting Cave Touring Replica) | Photo by Colin Robins | 2015

Model for Banqueting Cave Touring Replica | Bridgette Ashton | 2014

Caves Follies Grottoes Hermitages | Photo by Rob Smith | 2017
‘It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of
substituting the signs of the real for the real.’
- Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Sumulation

Italia (part of Zip Up Cases for a Motoring Tour of Europe, c.1982) | Photo by Rob Smith | 2005
An examination of modern tourism is not complete without discussing the subsidiary culture of souvenir manufacturing and collecting, its link to the wider history of collecting and in the philosophy of Jean Baudrillard, the system of objects. Following years of exploring public sites of attraction, Ashton found in herself a desire to work with more intimate objects. ‘There is a distinct intimacy of something one can physically possess and hold in one’s hand,’ citing artist Richard Serra’s use of art historian George Kubler’s concept of prime object, Ashton explains why her works on replicas of small collectibles are her way of disrupting the preconceived notions of taste and values in modern material culture.

Artificialia 62 | Photo by Paul Mounsey | 2021

Artificialia 41 | Photo by Paul Mounsey | 2021

The Artificialia Cabinet | Photo by Oli Udy | 2022

Plan for Artificialia 71 | Photo by Paul Mounsey | 2021

Minerals & Rocks in Colour | Photo by Paul Mounsey | 2021

Garnitures/Fake Ginger Jars (wip)
|
Photo by John Hershey |
2022
Ashton’s latest work, Garniture/Ginger Jar (2021 - ongoing), probes deeper into the collector’s domestic treasures. It is particularly resonating with this country’s passion for taste-making through collecting. As Baudrillard claims, nostalgia for origins and the obsession with authenticity are the two distinct features of the mythology of collecting antique, decorative objects. Ginger jars originated from 200 BCE China, the term itself is but a Western invention. At the height of Chinoiserie in the 18th century, Chinese ceramics like the ginger jar became sought-after decorative objects, which created a new export industry in southern coastal China where ceramists produce specific designs tailored to European tastes for merchants to bring back home as souvenirs. As Ashton shrewdly notes, they are intrinsically fake, just like the jars she creates, fantastical creatures with ormolu made not of gold and stand made of cardboard, yet as a set of garniture, they strengthen each other’s credibility and sense of certainty. Once collected, these objects become mental precincts that are abstracted from their function and thus brought into relationship with the collector: they became ‘my property and my passion’.
These pieces, to Ashton, exist together and in their own right. Regardless of the scale and subject matter she explores in each project, the visual and material qualities are always rich and layered with meaning. Unlike in a hyperreal tourist attraction, her works are activating. They invite viewers’ participation in deciding what kind of relationships they might form with these replicas. A tourist, a spectator, or a potential collector? If one is able to read into this rich language, the relationship will be one of playful collaboration.

SITE CREATED BY NATASHA BATORIJS | 2020