Home > Kunstenaars

Toon Fibbe

schrijven, performance, Economie, Audiovisueel, Artistiek onderzoek

“The central aim of my practice is to become attractive.”

Since few months I jokingly begin studio visits with this statement. In my studio I’m surrounded by glitters and wigs, yet depending on how people know my work, the statement sometimes causes confusion. For although my practice is quite theatrical and campy, it is also an analysis of the financial sector and the socio-economic conditions it has produced throughout history.

I find that attractiveness is rarely discussed in relation to global economics, yet I contend it is one of its structuring principles and can be found on many levels, for instance:
-Shops aim to become attractive to customers;
-Companies seeks to attract investors;
- And states make themselves attractive to companies by offering low tax rates and “flexible” labour markets.

And I—like most artists—also try to become attractive: to funding bodies, to curators, to gallery owners and to residency programs. I write proposals, do studio visits, pitch ideas—hoping to seduce investors into making some form investment

No matter how I twist or turn it, making myself attractive is a fundamental part of my practice and determines the economic conditions in which it can take place. Precisely the fact that this dynamic isn't unique to me as an artist—but rather drives the financial system as whole—currently forms the core of my practice.

Furthermore the fact that a funding application—an alluring promise on a piece of paper—isn’t so different from a share-paper is especially relevant to me as an artist working in the Netherlands — I’m acutely aware of how the invention of the stockmarket and financial speculation have shaped not only the country’s violent colonial project but also its artistic and cultural landscape.

"Sundar’s Signature Shopping Spree" - Papier-mâché, epoxy resin, acrylic paint, inkjet prints, PLA prints, PVC pipes, wood, Arduino. Dimensions vary. I’m currently attempting to write my first operetta - both the music and the lyrics. It is titled "Credit is Undone in Whispers" and it’ll be performed the animatronic masks on this page. These masks portray financial speculators during the time of the first major international stock market crisis in 1720—figures for whom appearance, charm, and perceived trustworthiness were crucial. Speculators had the reputation to be vain (even effeminate!) as they spent a great deal of time carefully constructing an image of reliability and sumptuousness. To want to appear trustworthy and opulent of course makes a lot of sense when you’re selling new financial products that in the end only exist in the imagination. (A logic also very much present in cryptocurrency influencers nowadays) In the operetta I'm writing I draw a parallel between these speculators, and my own position as an artist. For—just like the speculators—I, too, often sell a speculative product, whether in applications or during studio visits. Each time, I try to convince curators or funding bodies of something that promises to generate value in the future. I am writing both the music and the text. Although the piece is performed by animatronic masks—they look around and move their jaws—it is sung in my own voice. I am by no means a skilled singer, but that slight awkwardness feels fitting.
Craig’s Cryotherapy Catastrophy
Craig’s Cryotherapy Catastrophy - 2025 Papier-mâché, epoxy resin, acrylic paint, inkjet prints, PLA prints, PVC pipes, wood, Arduino. Dimensions vary. The title of this mask is Craig’s Cryotherapy Catastrophe. I usually name the masks in this series after important tech CEOs. This one, however, takes its name from Craig Steven Wright, a computer scientist and businessman who claims to be behind the creation of Bitcoin (although this is widely dismissed by both the media and the cryptocurrency community). Craig’s hat and jacket are made from A4 sheets printed on my home printer. His paper jacket flows into a contraption I always think of as a printer. The paper/jacket feeds through a series of cylinders much like newsprint on a rotary press. The mask itself is made of papier-mâché moulded onto a cast of my own face. On my papier-mâché face, a print is superimposed of a Dutch financial speculator from 1720. The result is a mask that carries the contours of my face, is named after someone falsely claiming to be the creator of Bitcoin, and bears the image of a colonial-era investor. One reason I work with paper is because it formed the foundation of the early-modern financial system. Printed stocks, certificates, and contracts allowed abstract value to circulate across continents. Paper thus became the vehicle of colonial trade and speculation. The Dutch colonial project unfolded alongside an early information economy, where paper circulated without end, wrapping the world in signs and encoding it into property relations. In Europe, people increasingly encountered one another and the world through print: pamphlets, newspapers, gossip, and rumor. Trust, value, reputation, even subjectivity itself became mediated by signs—letters printed on paper that traveled across the globe and seemed to acquire an eerie will of its own. The rise of financial abstraction was also the rise of a new kind of self: flattened, signed, detached from the body—yet still speaking.
3 Masks
3 Masks for the operetta "Credit is Undone in Whispers - Papier-mâché, epoxy resin, acrylic paint, inkjet prints, PLA prints, PVC pipes, wood, Arduino. Dimensions vary.
Lady Credit or Finance in Drag
Lady Credit or Finance in Drag - Although the financial sector today is commonly associated with masculinity, when the the sector emerged around 1700, it wasn’t so much associated with masculinity, as it was with femininity — especially in England. At the time, imagination, fantasy and strong emotions were regarded as the driving forces of the new financial economy. And precisely these impulses were regarded as feminine. As a consequence financial credit was often personified as a female figure of which the most prominent one became Lady Credit. Lady Credit is the central figure in my installation "Lady Credit or Finance in Drag". At its heart stands a hoop skirt—crinoline covered in silver, reflective mesh—that seems to hover above the ground. Rising from the skirt are multiple screens, echoing the glowing monitors that surround traders on Wall Street. On threse screens, Lady Credit herself appears. The three-channel video reimagines a short story by Joseph Addison, "Allegory of Public Credit" (1720). In the story, the author encounters Lady Credit seated on a golden throne in the Bank of England. Both in my video, as in the story she appears as a glittering figure: at once seductive and capricious. Lady Credit quite literally embodies the economy - stable however, she is not. She spends her days crying on her golden throne, only to then suddenly burst out laughing. Her moods fluctuate along with to the ups and downs of the economy and thus move from ecstatic happiness to total misery in but seconds. This instability has a clear cause: Lady Credit—so the story tells us—is entirely dependent on the trust of her audience-> her investors. Yet their trust is fickle - without it, she quickly loses value and withers away. As an allegory, Josephs Addison’s Lady Credit is undeniably sexist: the economy is imagined as a female body defined by mood swings, hypochondria and instability. Simultaneously, the exaggerated and grotesque character of Lady Credit also felt to me undeniably camp. As if Joseph Addison had unconsciously written Lady Credit as a drag queen. And the more I thought about that, the more it made sense - Lady Credit’s shifting moods reflect in fact not her own instability, but the instability of her investors - of the financial class. And while the financial class looks upon her - they in fact are looking at themselves: Lady Credit perfectly reflects their own fears, desires and insecurities - but in a glittery dress, and lavish make-up... in drag.
Lady Credit or Finance in Drag
Lady Credit or Finance in Drag
Lady Credit or Finance in Drag
Lady Credit or Finance in Drag
Too big too fail too small to notice
Too big too fail too small to notice - Performance in which I tell the true story of Chicago stock traders who started wearing heels on the trading floor in the late 1990s. In this chaotic, high-stakes environment, visibility meant everything—the taller you were, the faster you could trade. Platform heels became a means of gaining a competitive advantage. As more traders adopted this tactic, the heels became higher and higher, until traders began to lose their balance. Accidents on the trading floor became so common that the Chicago Board of Trade eventually intervened and mandated a maximum heel height of 2 inches. To explore this story, I created a fictional character: a trader who started wearing platform shoes in the 1990s. Through this character, I explore how financial gain became linked to physical spectacle. As the character frantically bounces around, he demonstrates how capital began to move through the body itself—amplified by shoes, jackets, color codes, and flashy patterns. Visibility became a form of currency.
Daddy Long Legs
Daddy Long Legs - A three-channel video installation based on the true story of Chicago stock traders who started wearing heels on the trading floor in the late 1990s. In this chaotic, high-stakes environment, visibility meant everything—the taller you were, the faster you could trade. Platform heels became a means of gaining a competitive advantage. As more traders adopted this tactic, the heels became higher and higher, until traders began to lose their balance. Accidents on the trading floor became so common that the Chicago Board of Trade eventually intervened and mandated a maximum heel height of 2 inches. To explore this story, I created a fictional character: a trader who started wearing platform shoes in the 1990s. Through this character, I explore how financial gain became linked to physical spectacle. As the character frantically bounces across the various screens, he demonstrates how capital began to move through the body itself—amplified by shoes, jackets, color codes, and flashy patterns. Visibility became a form of currency.
Fingers in All the Pits
Fingers in All the Pits - An ongoing series of animatronic hands performing the signs that used to be performed on the Chicago stock market floor. In the constant competition for speed and visibility on the trading floor these hand signals - called arbs - were faster than spoken word. Nowadays trading has become mostly digital, thus the trading, human body has been replaced by algorithms. In this work six ghostly human hands slowly perform the gestures using animatronics. They form an archive of a language that has nowadays become mostly obsolete. Severed and almost disregarded, they continue performing the signs that were once animated by capital.
Anatomische Les
Anatomische Les - Installation with animatronic hands, around which the performance Too Big to Fail Too Small to Notice can be performed.
To model arbitrage - A group of stylishly clad sculptures donning wigs, glitters, patterns, heels and stripes. They signal to each other using 3d printed hands. These signals -known as arbs- don’t originate from the world of fashion or popculture but rather from the chaotic environment of the Chicago trading floors. In the constant competition for speed and visibility on the market floor these hand signals were faster than spoken word. The hands are made from 3d scans of traders performing the signals. They form an archive of a language that has become obsolete; in a time when trading has become digital and the body has been replaced by algorithms. The sculptures are brightly coloured - the stripes and patterns reference the original clothing worn on the stock market.
17 Reasons
17 Reasons why people aren’t listening to you - Collaboration with Laura Wiedijk. An animatronic sculpture, part of the installation 17 Reasons Why People Aren’t Listening to You, performs the text from an award-winning 1999 advertisement for the Dutch network provider Ben. In this ad, a bodiless voice—the network itself—addresses the viewer with an eerie intimacy: “Tell me… what are you thinking about, what are your dreams? I want to hear your plans, all your thoughts.” The network shows interest. We can tell it everything, and it listens—seemingly without judgment. Like a therapist, merely reflecting. Or like a guardian angel: invisible, yet always present in the cloud. For this work, Laura Wiedijk and I examined the early marketing strategies of mobile and internet providers. At a time when constant connectedness was not yet taken for granted, these companies had the task of normalising permanent, intimate reachability. Today, the network is understood as an extractive force—a data-gathering system that capitalises on our bodies and our thoughts. But do you still remember how the damp tongue of the network felt as it licked your wounds? How warm the shelter was when you fell asleep, listening to its slow, algorithmic breathing?
17 Reasons
17 Reasons Why People Aren’t Listening to You
The Great Mirror of Folly
Too big to fail, too small to notice

Traces We Keep

Datum:
Locatie: Brutus

You Breath Differently Under the Weight. Debt and Credit

Datum:
Locatie: GAK Society for Contemporary Art

DEBT. Unsettling Matters of Interest

Datum:
Locatie: GAK Society for Contemporary Art

Wet t-shirt chorus

Datum:
Locatie: Komplot

Duotones: A series of artists talking

Datum:
Locatie: program of artist talks organised by A Tale of A Tub and Studio Art Office/CBK R’dam Hosted by TENT

Jesterdays

Datum:
Locatie: Jester

Symposium Archief Speculatief "The Great Mirror of Folly: Immorality and Seduction"

Datum:
Locatie: UVA

Deze kunstenaar heeft nog geen toekenningen.