Like the recent use of Hilma af Klint as fashion, her totems of spirituality becoming themselves symbol-patterns printed on dresses and totes worn as cultural baggage, Otto-Knapp shortcuts this droste-abyme of cultural appropriation immediately placing its icons onto its own tasteful dresses before being recirculated dancing in front of/into paintings, reinserted back into its aura. An aware circulation of aura in the contemporary brand system, re-uping Munchian mannerism for 21st century management. At what point are spirituality and the quasi-mystical retainable through the deadening pragmatics of contemporary art, in which symbols are vaporized in a Kelley Walker-esque reproduction line, and at what point is it able to retain its “irrational” function standing in opposition to the immediate rational vampire of functionary markets.
