Goodnight travel well

2012

A show that took place simultaneously at 14 different locations worldwide. Gallery Centre Pompidou, France Gallery Niagara Falls, Canada Gallery Senso-ji temple, Japan Gallery Red Light District, The Netherlands Gallery Filopappou Hill, Greece Gallery Luna Park, Australia Gallery Waianapanapa, USA Gallery S Durango Ave, USA Gallery Red Square, Russia Gallery Vigelandsparken, Norway Gallery Juquehy, Brazil Gallery Parque de España, Argentina Gallery Tiananmen Square, China Gallery Karaköy, Turkey

Curated by: Curator: Mathieu Puyau, Jarek Mcjwsk, Hosoo Fumihiko, Tom Lawrence, Tind, Ben John Smith, Christopher Raykovich, Jeremy Goldberg, Vas Probelov, Bard Hole Standal, Eduardu Bellotto, Silvia Armentano, Fabio Thile, Mehmet Gemalmaz, Valparaíso/Santiago

I know some artist who are very excited, when they get the chance of having a solo or a group show in a gallery. Hurray!

You guess, {ths} is mostly NOT very excited about. Ohh, don’t get that wrong, there are great moments when you have a show. You know: the free beer at the opening, seeing your work on the wall, speaking with the audience, or the best thing: watching people looking at the artworks and finding all the little disgusting things in it, and may I remind you of the wonderful moment, when the gallery owner offer you his couch for sleeping? Really great moments!

But yes, it also means a lot of arrangement, damn much work with the shipping of your artworks, struggling with strange gallery behavior and such. If you are not in the position of having some drug filled up entourage working for you and manage everything, you are in a somewhat stressful position.

Anyway, the best thing at all is, when you travel to another country to present your work. That can mean a lot to an artist. People often ask, if {ths} could show his work in their country. So, how it is possible to display the artworks to a lot of people, in different countries as gallery space (without using the website as gallery space) and without the hassle of arguing with galleries? (It’s really arguing, because art is a damn business, you know.)

The goal was to have a solo show in different cities all over the world, at the same time. Sure, you can’t be at the same time on different places in the world, only if you have a clone army of yourself. But it isn’t important to be there, it is important that people can see the artworks.
The process of showing artworks in galleries is mostly just something that has nothing to do with the artworks itself. You manufacture a product, a supermarket tries to sell it (change “product” with “artwork” and “supermarket” with “gallery” here). Sometimes artworks are created exclusively for a show, but again, “showing” is not art, it’s business.

Why not using the world as gallery, placing artworks in countries instead inside galleries?

GOODNIGHT TRAVEL WELL: THE SHOW ITSELF IS THE ARTWORK

{ths} asked people in different countries to be part of the project. As part of the art itself, those who accepted where “elected” to be curators. Nice people I never met in person. Every curator got an artwork from {ths}, send by mail (real mail, remember?). Some where lost, some hit the ground.

Typically art is displayed inside galleries or in the streets (this is called “street art”). As much as I like the white walls of a gallery, I don’t like the limited space, the commercial feeling inside those cold rooms. My idea of having a show in – for example– Tokyo is to have a show somewhere inside Tokyo, not in a gallery, not in a predefined space that was made for showing art.

As part of the project the curators had to pick a location in their county, placing the artwork and take a photo of it. They could leave the artwork at place for other people to watch or just sell it, burn it, take it, whatever.

Those people aren’t gallery owners. The don’t have the experience presenting art to people. So, the places they chose where more or less special. Some where selected during lunch, some where selected while shopping in a supermarket, some where selected to show the beauty of their country, some because they were located on a route from home to their workplace. Everything was possible and I had no control about the selection.
In the spirit of my art, that was exactly what I was looking for. Things that happen randomly or without your control and you have to deal with it. Wonderful shit.

Oh yeah, we need to be conform with the mainstream, and so those places where called “Gallery”. Ever heard of the “Gallery Waianapanapa” in Hawaii or the “Gallery Niagara Fall ” in Canada? No? Because they just exist for a short moment in time. Just between the placement of the artwork and the creating of a photograph.

Have the artworks and the short moment of the show available for everyone, photos from the gallery places where published into Google Maps. This is probably the by far biggest exhibition or let’s say that you need to travel a whole day to see another artwork of the show in real life.

The show took place at 14 different locations: France, Canada, Japan, Netherlands, Greece, Australia, USA (Hawaii and Los Angeles), Russia, Norway, Brazil, Argentina, China and Turkey. 3 additional artworks got somehow lost or never arrived their destination: UK (London), Chile (Valparaiso) and USA (New York City). Goodnight travel well.

View GOODNIGHT TRAVEL WELL stations on Google map

Photos: by the Curators

THE ARTWORKS

All artworks are mixed media/collage on paper, Dimensions: ca. 105 x 148 / 148 x 148 mm

TO LIFE
HOT LUNCH
Fountain of Love
MA-A-A-AN
ROCKET
LOVE GOD BLITZ
BLITZ
MATILDA! …DON’T
NO SOUL
THE LOST
FAILURE LESS
SO ADULT ONE ‘X’ ISN’T ENOUGH
7-DAY TRIAL
PART MAN-PART ELEMENTAL FURY!
BANG!
IT’S EASY! IT’S FUN!
ALL NEW SHOCK!