Would you vote for a fish? Just in time for Germany’s federal election, an artist in Konstanz has started the Fish Party. The water-borne party members believe in transparency and liquidity. And they are slippery characters, hard to get a handle on, who blow a lot of air bubbles — just like real politicians.

If you look into the crystal clear stream in the southwestern German city of Konstanz on Lake Constance, you can see fish. This in itself is not an unusual thing. But these fish don’t seem to making any headway. And if you look more closely you can see that the fish in question are actually attached to iron poles. Turns out they are, in fact, sculptures. And over the railing of the bridge hangs a sign that indicates what these sculptures are doing here. It’s an election campaign sign and the slogan says: “Swim against the current with us. The Fish.”

At first you might think this is another German election joke, along the lines of comedian Horst Schlämmer’s fake campaign. Or maybe a cunning ruse by the independent Pirate Party. But in fact artist Markus Brenner is the man behind this particular campaign. The 46-year-old Konstanz local explains his project enthusiastically — it’s an “art party,” he muses. And although he manages the party, the candidates are fish, trout that wear swimming costumes emblazoned with either the German, Swiss or Swedish national colors.

Humans Are Animals, Fish Are more Civilized

Brenner has been working with fish since 2002, when he put together a video installation featuring a Swiss water polo team and cavorting fish, dressed in swimsuits. The result was a film featuring violent humans, playing like wild animals underwater, and a far more civilized fish society, conducting an elegant and well-ordered dance beneath the waves. The apparent exchange of roles and the analogy of fish as men and vice versa sparked off an ongoing fascination for Brenner. His work has often involved dressing freshly caught fish in swimming costumes and photographing them. Disguised and looking more like individuals in their own right than the easily interchangeable marine animals we like to fry up for dinner, the dressed-up fish straddle the border between nature and culture.

Just in time for the opening of his latest underwater exhibition, Brenner pasted Fish Party posters all over town. In preparation, Brenner researched election campaign posters. His conclusion: “A simple structure that’s been the same for years. Slogan, photo, symbol. And it’s done.” To set the stage properly, he came up with slogans that any fishy politician could be proud of. “We offer deeper thinking.” “A better future with no hooks.” “Everyone standing on their own two feet.” As well as various catchwords for the Fish Party: liquidity and transparency being just two examples.

The First Fish Party Campaign Stand in Germany

On July 31, Brenner set up the Fish Party’s first electioneering stand on Konstanz’ busy lakefront. It was your typical political stand — a sun umbrella, the party’s logo and colors, prospectuses, postcards and badges. And some fish of course. Some bystanders found it all a bit confusing. As visitors to the stand drank coffee with Brenner in the sunshine, he says, “they would ask me things like whether they could vote for us, what was this all about and what sort of policies we had.” Because of his slogan about going against the current, one person even though the Fish Party might want to fight for lower electricity prices, Brenner recounts with a smirk.

Brenner says he wants his Fish Party to draw attention to various socio-political developments. Just as his fish take on human characteristics simply by dressing up in national colors, so too do humans change their own nature by associating themselves with certain logos or brands. People tend to dress like the social “tribes” they belong to — and as they do, they lose their national identity.

Do Fish Need Passports?

The other day Brenner overheard a woman standing directly on the border between Germany and Switzerland saying that she wanted to buy a Swiss fish. But Brenner thinks that is absurd — how can a fish be Swiss? Still, a fish with a nationality is food for an artist’s thoughts. “Where you are born, on which side of the border, means so much,” he says. But it’s also completely arbitrary. “So in another way, it’s totally valid.”

Despite founding his Fish Party, Brenner cannot imagine becoming properly politically active. He thinks that in many ways art can be more powerful because artists can experiment. Their work questions the status quo but they never need to justify the ideas they play with. It’s almost exactly that which is missing from real politics, Brenner says — the willingness to experiment. “It would be exciting if politics was a little more experimental,” he argues. “As in, you could test something out for a couple of years — something like the minimum wage for example.” But politicians have too many vested interests and are always too concerned about keeping their seats.

Fish Raise Questions about German Politics

Meanwhile, Stöhr likes the fact that a well-known city canal has changed a little and that the Fish Party is prompting a second glance. “Suddenly this little waterway — which everyone takes for granted, despite the fact that it is wonderfully romantic — has become something special,” he notes.

The Fish Party is also a great example of “contextual art,” Stöhr says. “By doing what political parties do, Brenner is insinuating himself into the political process,” he explains. It raises questions, too, such as: “What happens if we swap fish for politicians? The metaphor for politicians is fish: slippery, non-vocal, easily exchangeable and you cannot get a handle on them. Instead of saying anything genuine, they just blow air bubbles.”

Back in the canal in Konstanz, nature is already reclaiming Brenner’s fish friends — and surprisingly quickly too. Every few weeks the artist has to get into the water to clean the members of the Fish Party of the algae, plankton and small crabs they have collected. Unfortunately in the real world, politicians are not quite as easily sanitized.

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Full article: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,646583,00.html

Photo: http://www.markusbrenner.com/fischpartei/images/parteimitglieder_004.jpg