"EURO NEU MODE"

Duo show with Charles Benamin @Everyday Gallery Antwerp

May 16 - June 16, 2020

For our exhibition at Everyday Gallery we're showing over 30 found and made paintings, and reinforced Chinese import/export carton boxes functioning as modular seating sculptures, one of which bares the title Euro Neu Mode.

Euro Neu Mode is meant to be a compressed version of what we've been working on for the last 6 years. Not in the sense of a retrospective but rather a summary of conclusions. In broad terms it's about a type of flattening of relations between high art and low life. In a way it's looking for a point of friction where these two become interchangeable.

In 2016, we did a show at New Day Gallery titled Merchandise Show. The idea was to have no artists, and to have whatever "art" there was be cheap branded merchandise for the Gallery. We had paintings, branded beach towels, T-shirts, vacuum packed fresh fish, kitchen towels, a home made flame thrower made out of some steel thread a lighter and an AXE can, and our own beer made from mixing two different store-bought beers. This was all presented in carton boxes from the local Asian supermarket. They were later used as plinths in a show and finally we built a box castle the size of the whole gallery space.

Initially the boxes were just cheap available material. The idea was to present art in a way where it had to fend for itself. It was never said outright but Nicanor Parra illustrates the attitude well when he says (roughly translated from Spanish)"POETRY WILL DIE IF NOT OFFENDED. It has to be possessed and humiliated in public. Afterwards we'll see What we do."

In this sense the found paintings are a type of orphaned survivors. They have none of what is needed of a painting to survive. No art historical argument, no artist,no market, no context. They are as close as you can get to just painting. 

"EURO NEU MODE"

Duo show with Charles Benamin @Everyday Gallery Antwerp

May 16 - June 16, 2020

For our exhibition at Everyday Gallery we're showing over 30 found and made paintings, and reinforced Chinese import/export carton boxes functioning as modular seating sculptures, one of which bares the title Euro Neu Mode.

Euro Neu Mode is meant to be a compressed version of what we've been working on for the last 6 years. Not in the sense of a retrospective but rather a summary of conclusions. In broad terms it's about a type of flattening of relations between high art and low life. In a way it's looking for a point of friction where these two become interchangeable.

In 2016, we did a show at New Day Gallery titled Merchandise Show. The idea was to have no artists, and to have whatever "art" there was be cheap branded merchandise for the Gallery. We had paintings, branded beach towels, T-shirts, vacuum packed fresh fish, kitchen towels, a home made flame thrower made out of some steel thread a lighter and an AXE can, and our own beer made from mixing two different store-bought beers. This was all presented in carton boxes from the local Asian supermarket. They were later used as plinths in a show and finally we built a box castle the size of the whole gallery space.

Initially the boxes were just cheap available material. The idea was to present art in a way where it had to fend for itself. It was never said outright but Nicanor Parra illustrates the attitude well when he says (roughly translated from Spanish)"POETRY WILL DIE IF NOT OFFENDED. It has to be possessed and humiliated in public. Afterwards we'll see What we do."

In this sense the found paintings are a type of orphaned survivors. They have none of what is needed of a painting to survive. No art historical argument, no artist,no market, no context. They are as close as you can get to just painting.