The Parafiction as Counterpoint to the Gimmick

In her article “The Theory of the Gimmick,” Sianne Ngai makes the argument that the gimmick is found in every object bought and sold in a capitalist economy and, therefore, the aesthetic of the gimmick is a phenomenon specific to that of capitalism. In an attempt to understand this aesthetic category, Ngai proposes it may be due to the way in which the gimmick transforms idea into thing. This paper looks at the transformation of concept into object as exemplified by Duchamp’s readymade, and suggests how the increasingly gimmicky nature of conceptual art has resulted in an aesthetic condition wherein there is a collapse of the boundary between “art” and “nonart”—fiction and reality. The parafiction, an art practice that performs a deceptive act through use of stylistic mimicry, does not necessarily re-establish this boundary between the real and the fictive, but promotes a necessary awareness of this collapse; and insodoing distrupts the confused condition caused by the predominance of the gimmick.