Casey: Sweetness 2001

About the artwork

Casey Spooner generously offered Absolut Art this exclusive description of the portrait of him, Casey: Sweetness 2001:

“2001 was a strange year. In the springtime we did our largest and most ambitious show in Los Angeles. It was a total creative triumph but the production was fraught with complications. I was broke and homeless living in the Standard Hotel while the production went wildly over budget—into six figures.

We performed for three days, did a photo shoot for one day, and finished with a film shoot on the last day. On that last day of production, Warren pulled me aside and convinced me that we should announce the end of the project to the cast and crew. We both couldn’t bear the pressure of the project. It was taking a toll on our personal lives and it was time to call it quits. We had achieved everything we had set out to do in 1998. We had merged art, music, fashion, film, photography and performance.

Fischerspooner was over! My heart was broken and I wept in the dressing room. I was barely able to get the words out to my dearest friends and collaborators. This series of images marked the end of an era, the pre-entertainment years. Everything we had done up until this point was mostly in the art world.
Ironically, in the summer of 2001 the first album was released on a German record label called International Deejay Gigolos. I had taken a job as a receptionist/agent and all but given up on a creative career. The record took off. The response was strong. Reluctantly, I was persuaded to go on a press tour of Europe to support the album release…which lead to a performance in Barcelona during Sonar at a club called Lolita. (It was this performance that inspired a young Jake Shears to start a band called Scissor Sisters.) Needless to say, the project continued to grow and change and shapeshift. Fischerspooner is a beast that can never be tamed or killed. Twenty-one years later, we still make art and music.”