GHOSTS DON’T LIKE NEW THINGS — Paul Spendier at Krinzinger Schottenfeld, Vienna

Submission
July 17, 2023

Ghosts don‘t like New Things

Paul Spendier at Krinzinger Schottenfeld, Vienna
June 23 — July 01, 2023 

I stopped thinking about what
could have been, and feel the gentle
touch of sun warmed plastics.
My silicone skin is slowly stretching and
releasing. My very essence is tuned to
the average rhythm of existence.
I’m doing the bare minimum.
I am playing the Alive show.

The installation “Ghosts don’t like New Things” brings together a series of sculptural works exploring the remains of past futures in the now. They hint at a bygone era of movie special effects and are objects that don’t stand for themselves but try to invoke carefully crafted illusions. They are props of a greater narrative that seems to have been lost somewhere along the way. Although the futures they were once intended to be included in didn’t fulfill themselves, they refuse to go away, like haunting specters. By using cliché horror movie tropes like puppets, abandoned houses and ghosts, they evoke a new storyline about past utopias, lost futures and feelings of disillusionment.

A miniature dollhouse and worn-down billboards suggest that the setting is an abandoned industrial park. The main character is a carefully crafted mechanical puppet, a forgotten stand-in for an actor that now doesn’t do much more than pretend to be alive. Small objects are spread out on the walls of the room that could either be used as props for the puppet or miniatures that add to the landscape of the scenery. The title is inspired by a line appearing in “The Sanctified Church”, an anthropological study by Zora Neale Hurston. Her work is a description of spiritualism in the Black Church of the American South that also contains beautifully detailed guides on how to deal with certain ghosts: “If a house is haunted, a piece of new lumber should be nailed in a conspicuous place. Ghosts hate new things”.