Video, 2008,
4:3, 30 min

»Gisbert Stach’s video, Fitting, parodies cinematographic scenes of jewelry-mediated, pre-nuptial, pre-sex, or pre-kiss rituals: a seated woman is looking at the camera (possibly playing the conventional role of a suggested mirror) while a man passes around her neck the glittering sign of his affection: here, my love, this one is for you. In Stach’s version, this chain necklace leads to many others: the model’s slow collapse, thirty minutes and 22 lbs. of chain later, signals the end of a slow paced, blank-faced indictment on marital gift-giving (and bridal gift-receiving). This is a filmed performance, and if the actress ‘would prefer not to’ she never says, or lets go of her reserve in the face of excessive (and ultimately painful), accumulation.«

Benjamin Lignel