A ketamine bottle filled with liquid is surrounded by a display case, presented archivally as a witness to our time. With her annual edition, Sibylle Springer departs from her usual medium of painting, yet remains true to her artistic exploration of the ambivalent. In poisonous pleasure Springer examines the ambiguities in the use of ketamine.
As well as its medical use as a narcotic and analgesic, its hallucinogenic effect means that ketamine is also consumed as a party drug, and it can also be used as a knockout drug. In her work, Springer gauges the fluctuating, ambivalent nature of the substance: in one and the same place—a party—ketamine can be used as a drug to bring both pleasure and pain. The title of the work makes it clear: in each case it represents a poisonous pleasure.