Fischerspooner

Warren Fischer, a classically trained musician, and Casey Spooner, who worked in experimental theater, met at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In New York in 1998 they started Fischerspooner, a project incorporating music, performance, image and celebrity. Its first appearance, at the Starbucks on Astor Place, set out its interest in being a new portrait of entertainment. Appearing at Jack Tilton Gallery, nightclubs, P.S.1, inside sculptures by Rirkrit Tiravanija and Dan Graham, the top of the World Trade Center, a construction site, a collector's home during Art Basel Miami Beach, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, Deitch Projects, Top of the Pops, the rotunda of the Museum of Modern Art and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Fischerspooner defied easy description and embraced confusion and fun as artistic inquiry. Live, it grew to more than 20 performers, dancers, singers and technicians with handmade costumes, choreography and special effects. “Emerge," written for a performance at P.S.1 with lyrics taken from the project's artist statement, became the signature single from the debut album #1. Odyssey (2005), produced by Mirwais, drew on a text by Susan Sontag; Entertainment (2009), produced by Jeff Saltzman, featured Ann Magnuson; Sir (2018), produced by Michael Stipe and Boots coinciding with an installation in Vienna at Mumok museum. In 2026, Pitchfork ranked "Emerge” No. 2 in a retrospective of the era.