Stalking Kristen Stewart in the name of art

We’ve all had a little stalk. Whether it’s your ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend, your new boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, we’ve all had a dabble in some digital debasement. Call it boredom, curiosity or temporary insanity, it’s now become a given – a creepy, yet very well-worn, tradition of the social media age.

While the majority of us can stop the scrolling and shut the tabs, though, some don’t find the battle so easy. Stalking can quickly morph into something a whole lot more murky and disturbing, and it’s here that artist Yves Scherer found his inspiration. For his latest show, Snow White and The Huntsman, he’s decided to harness this darkness; climbing into the mind of a crazed (and potentially v violent) Kristen Stewart superfan.

Scherer – who attracted controversy last year for building four life-size nudes of Emma Watson – says that his main aim is to reflect on the way we form our relationships. Despite the totally creepy theme, he insists that this show is a “modern fairytale”: built out of collages, selfies, and smears of blood-like substances. “I think the show is a lot about the idea of the intimate stranger, of this familiarity with public figures, the time shared with them and about the dreams and let downs connected to it,” he shares. “(It’s) quite like the child falling in love with the princess – I feel like Hollywood provides us with figures that are beyond our reach.”

So why Kristen? While the Swiss artist assures that he’s not “exactly” in love with the Snow White and the Huntsman star, he was fascinated by the “the shame” she attracted for cheating on boyfriend Robert Pattinson back in 2012. “The act of her betrayal has offended so many people,” he explains, referring to her affair with director Rupert Sanders. “(Even I had) a reaction, due to my own personal history with situations and events like that. Also, I think she just seems like a cool girl.”

Whether he thinks she’s cool or not, his show seems to go much deeper than that. Taking the position of a lover whose affection is unrequited, he creates a terrifying fake narrative – like a fan fiction gone nightmarishly wrong – and sets it in the kind of building that’s rarely seen outside of horror movie sets. It’s “It’s an exploration of the illusion of intimacy between celebrity and audience,” one Fluxo show synopsis reads. “A product of the ever-tightening and finely spun media mesh, which started off with paparazzi culture but has risen exponentially with the diffusion of social media platforms as Instagram or Twitter.”

Whether Stewart herself actually knows about the exhibition is still unknown, though Scherer admits that meeting her would actually be “the greatest thing” that could happen. “It's interesting that the art also changes the position that I'm in, which would then obviously change the nature or subject of the work,” he ponders. “I'm a little bit looking for love so all this text here, and the intellectual take on it, might be just talking around that fact.”

Snow White And The Huntsmen is currently showing at the joségarcía ,mx, gallery in Mexico City