The work of Jochen Schmith, a collective composed of artists Carola Wagenplast, Peter Hoppe and Peter Steckroth, addresses contemporary consumerism, aesthetic signifiers of lifestyle and luxury fetishism in a way that’s both subtle and razor-sharp. The commercial, the institutional, and the mediated are under close scrutiny in their practice, which ranges from objects and installations to audiovisual works and radical spatial interventions, such as the one they undertook in the Amsterdam artist-run space W139 (It’s Only Rock ’n Roll (But We Like It), 2011): the gallery floor was covered with a rough, ink-black, tarmac-like material mixed with a small, glittering particle. On the other end of the spectrum are works such as There Was a Time(2007), an audio piece consisting of advertisers’ descriptions of luxury housing in Hong Kong; or smaller objects such as Cigar Ends – Collectors’ Waste (2010), a bronze cast of a cigar collected from an art fair VIP lounge. In “Present Gifts,” their current solo show at VI, VII, Oslo, they further investigate commercial and political power structures with works such as Lazy Bones (2014), an embroidered canvas mocking the fake splatters of paint used by designers such as Ralph Lauren and Dolce & Gabbana on their so-called “painters pants;” or withSpinning Object (2014), a carousel of 53 slides listing gifts exchanged between politicians, economists and individuals in foreign states.