Summary

Fetish unfolds at London’s Freud Museum, depicting the yearly nighttime cleaning of the psychoanalyst’s personal collection of archeological statues and artifacts. Exposing the unseen procedural activities of the museum, the material and exquisitely mundane qualities of these objects are disclosed. The leading protagonists–analyst, patient (and tourist visitor)—are present only in the objects’ endless accumulation of dust and its painstaking, methodical removal. The artist’s rendering of the ritual cleaning allows for a reverse gaze at Freud’s personal collection and furniture—alternately tender, projective and voyeuristic, as the conservator’s brush sweeps the delicate surfaces of each object, or pulls back fabric upon fabric to reveal a couch’s hidden structure. Through subtle parallels, these objects, processes, and the intimate empathy their simultaneous systems each suggest, are both mirrored and revealed.