Writing on: Context and Visual Culture in Recent Works of Allen Fisher and Ulli Freer

Abstract

This article is a study of Allen Fisher’s Proposals and SPUTTOR, and Ulli Freer’s Burner on the Buff. It aims to demonstrate that these works, despite their individual differences, share certain common parallels: (1) an interest in literary and visual culture, and (2) an awareness of the bearing these aspects of culture have on questions of state and civil authority. In the case of Proposals, this is discussed via the context of work – particularly in relation to the marketization of Higher Education (HE) – and Fisher’s poetics of ‘confidence in lack’. These analyses are extended further through an examination of the social history of the US Space Shuttle programme under the Reagan administration, and the visual practices of collage in SPUTTOR. The broader claims of these arguments are subsequently paralleled with cultural and socio-legal perspectives pertaining to graffiti–especially in connection to Banksy’s recent work, Art Buff, which ultimately provides a crucial context for understanding key aspects of Burner on the Buff.