Jacqueline Fraser at Kunsthalle Zürich

From 8 ½ to Legally Blonde, Fraser selects films that could be deemed high brow or low. They narrate stories of ambitious characters moving up and out, by hook or by crook and often against social expectations of their race, gender or sexuality. Of course, these aren’t exactly ‘remakes’. Rather, the tone, context and atmosphere of these films are absorbed into sculptural arrangements and large-scale installations that feign to be as ostentatious as the characters and stories that inspire them – moving image arrested as art, posing as fashion, scored by rap and staged as theatre; narrative and its imagery circulating from one realm of fantasy to another.

The Making of Maria by Callas 2020 is inspired by Tom Volf’s 2017 documentary about the soprano Maria Callas. Itself a found footage collage, the work traces the life of, arguably, the greatest opera star – both as a virtuoso and an icon of international acclaim – of the 20th century. In particular, the film details the staging of the diva-character ‘Callas’ by the person ‘Maria’, and the compromises this entailed for both.