How I Went In & Out of Business for Seven Days and Seven Nights, 2008

How I Went In & Out of Business for Seven Days and Seven Nights, 2008
Looped slideshow projection stemming from a week-long performance at the GalerieACDC in Bordeaux

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How I Went In & Out of Business for Seven Days and Seven Nights, _2008
Installation using mainly salvaged materials : chipboard, plastic crates and basins, blankets, wood shipping palettes, coffee, coffee machine, meudon white, detergent.
Projected slideshow loop of 97 images.
Collection Frac Bretagne Views of the exhibition at the galerieACDC, Bordeaux. Photo : DR

• Click on the last picture to see others exhibitiion views_

For a week I took over the new galerieACDC in Bordeaux to open and close as many businesses as possible. I took advantage of the fact that the gallery was not yet officially opened to play on ressemblances between the art world and the world of finance in order to create a space whose constant, accelerated mutation could raise questions relating to the value (real and symbolic) conferred upon things, speculation, and the economic excesses that seem to go hand in hand with global capitalism and its spatiotemporal framework.

The works presents certain affinities with works by Robert Morris and Allen Ruppersberg, respectively “Continuous project altered daily” and Al’s Café/Al’s Grand Hôtel.
These works interest me for the way they use process and an evolving situation to question artistic production as well as to play with the spectator’s perception by provoking slippages of meaning.

The businesses that emerged during this period were created using a limited vocabulary of common materials and objects.
7 days saw the birth and demise of 10 businesses.

The gallery space was in a state of disorder most of the time. Businesses came and went, each rising from the debris of the one that came before. The gallery window acted as an interface to tell the outside world about the activities taking place within the space. It worked a bit like a movie screen (blanks, captions) for the projection of a silent film whose unfolding and plot remained nearly invisible until the final installation.
Occasionally, a passerby entered the space, intrigued by a particular business (the laundromat or the hotel for example) or the disturbing turnover of leases.

The final installation (the appearance of the slideshow presenting the activity of the preceding days, and the auctioning of the materials used to create the businesses) made it possible to have an overall vision of the events that had taken place the week before. FF