Taking a step into the virtual space, leaving the bricks and mortal for a while, and just floating around:::: The last exhibition in the „arthouse“
First of all we should explain this zine... Its contents are based on one exhibition, that happened on the 8th of december, and continued until the 6th of january 2013, featuring „soup“ and „wink“ and a door room, featuring 6 guest artists....We had about a month before the exhibition, to build the place out, to fit our vision..... Over the process, this changed and grew with us.
I remember a moment.... I had recieved a pressure sprayer from a friend. After a long setup, it just wouldnt go... It made such a high pitched sound, I thought it was going to explode!... I could tell something was not right. I spent an evening trying to get it in action, eventually, I took the whole thing apart, running water through it, I found the only place the problem could be. With a small wire I cleaned a tiny, tiny filter, and SHLA-BLAM!!! It was amazing!, The spray that came from this machine (also the sound) was huge! It could spray straight over corners, curves, whatever! It was the destroyer. The house was full of panels and awkward colors, this would just blast over anything. There were tags and throw ups everywhere. This just blasted over it, painting rooms that would normally take hours, took literally minutes! As good as possible, as fast as possible.
The house was now a blank canvas......
setting the scene and starting with a white canvas
SINK OUR TEETH IN....
. . . T H E O U TSI D E
There is something for sure about working with confidence... No one ever suspects, that you are doing something that you should‘nt be, not one time did anyone stop to ask if we had permission. people were just happy for the color on the street....
the main street of Wipkingen LOL
THE ENTRANCE.... Wink had a really cool idea. To make it look like you were entering through the actual colors of the letters... Into an explosion of color. Using chicken wire, Paper machĂŠ and a bunch of other things, he fully shaped out the entry to the house.
Printed poster for the show....
Slowly come in through the colors....
Video of front painting here.
in an explosion of colors...The main stairway.
We had decided to fully paint the stairway. leaving the rooms reasonably empty. well empty, (I guess that is a relative term.) When we painted the stairway We put curtains covering the entrances and doors, Basically creating a big bag for us to spray paint in. The paint really started to get into your fibres and pores. Spraying through a mist of colors, in gas masks. It felt like we were painting inside the piece. I guess we will look back on this project and wish that we had more time. I guess this was the statement on this wall. Of why do they need to tear down things, that are already good and working, to build big expensive apartment blocks?
Its right to say that it was nice. (The time we had here.) But it also would have been nice, to have had some more. looking down on the stairs up....
F I R ST F LO O R . . . .
The Big swiss news paper (Tages Anzeiger) was nice enough to give us an almost full page in the news-paper the day before the exhibition. Thanks so much again Carmen Roshard and Doris Fanconi (photos), for your support. I Think they saw the effort ,we had put into the project, this publicity really bought a broad spectrum of people.
I think wink said it perfect „People would be amazed how much effort we put into things that make us no money“ The dining room::::
why not pull the pin::::
We tried to intergrate the natural parts of the house, as well as adding some of our own.
sometimes the pleasure in what we do, is what its for. A real shape of things to come::::
Looking out the window to a Blunt space world . On the opening night there were skaters ripping the landscape, as the ship slowly drifted into another space. Machine programmed too fast... making it impossible to make it to the 8th level, even getting close you need a plan....
When we are there in that place, of creativity.... All time seems to blend, into a moment of dedication, to a goal, that only the artist can see. The signature at the end to say its finished. Standing back and reflecting on the finished goal, as it begins to fade, and is replaced by a new one..... A new possibility for the lines we travel down. As the lines we paint, with the personal choices of highs and lows, that all build up, to make a picture.... Of just that. A moment in time.
ready to find their places
Are the things that we do permanent? maybe thats a part of the process, to find the perfect place, the perfect time. The permanant line?
writting style cutouts...
barbed wire Going thru‘ a fence to a place you are not supossed to be, looking over the shoulder at every light and sound. Waiting, planning and timing for the best time for expression. Then letting go, without inhabitions realising the sketch inside your head as the time ticks, speed essential to flow, as the lines flow over bland steel and crete.
wink station, rails and barbwire::::
T H E T R A I N STO R Y. . . . A feature to one of the rooms, was going to be a railway track running right through the middle of it. Wink Had some friends at the Besucherbergwerk Bergbaumeuseum, in Horgen. A small tourist attraction ( a trip into a coal mine, sitting on the original train they used to mine coal.) The tracks are a little smaller than the normal train lines. But this would do fine for our purpose.
They also cut the tracks to the right size, so it would be an easy task to just lay the tracks, then add some small stones around the gaps. I remembered the day Wink arrived with the tracks, two assembled pieces in the back of his van. We took out the first section, and put it in the room. I Imediatley realised that the track took up more than half of the room. In the van the pieces both looked the same size, I didnt say anything, maybe it was a visual illusion thing. Bringing the second section in, it was clear. The track was 30cm too long. We had a small steel hand saw and a dremel. This was a train track, NO chance to cut it, NO way. We Imagined what we could do, cut a hole in the walls? This was not possible, one was to the outside, the other was into the already completed space room. Eventually we carted the tracks (lucky the were open in winter) To the steel workshop in „Dynamo“ and they cut it in a massive stand-up steel cutter for 5bucks (thanks :) The point of this story is not to say, that it was stupid for Wink to do an estimation of the track length. (stupid)
It is to say, even when we were given almost impossible goals, we managed to cut through them cleanly. It was a real experience of art. As much for the viewers enjoyment, it was for the artists.
the extra pieces::::
recycled rollers. up and down::::
STA I R WAY. . . . The drips continued up the stairway, the wall opening and closing its mouth to welcome guests inside.... This is when we had gone past the point of just putting our paintings on the wall, the stairway up to the second floor was now literally living and breathing. Leading the viewer upstairs.... breaking from shadows and light into the other possibilities that lay before us. The lines crossing all surfaces, then further, dripping from the walls. Day after day, again in this gas mask world, as the ideas also dripped from the brain to the wall, as the creative flow continued through the house::::
The recycled roller door opened and closed at different times, depending on how the store manager (Andre) felt, giving the feeling of the front door of the shop opening. Then people craming into our tiny store..
Squeezing into a super small shop. Featuring the full Ironlak collection (the tools of our trade) some limited edition numberone tees, and the first release of the oversized „streetlamps“ with integrated night light.
re-purposed bathroom, from bathroom, to „the bathroom“ a micro spray paint store.
b at h r o o m .
wink‘s homage to iz the wiz:::: Wink did a really nice series of wooden cut pieces. It was such a nice mesh of classic wooden panelling, grafitti and hand cut homages.
wink‘s homage to dondi white::::
un-natural never looked so natural, room full of doors::::
a room full of doors::::
it just looked so clean, thought I would show it a bunch of times::::
cee.... no really, actually cee::::
DOOR ROOM....
We took off alot of doors, in this process. To use them, we built a room with them... Seven individual mini rooms. We decided to invite some guest artists, each with there own space. With the black and white floor it was a little bit „Trippy“ , alot of people thought the doors would go somewhere. Even though they had been in the room right next door previously . They knew there was another room right there, but they thought in their mind it would go to another part of the house::::
CEE
SNYR
a rt i sta s c o n o s c i ut o
a rt i sta s c o n o s c i ut o
ALEX SCHAUWECKER
one more time::::
Maybe its a clichè, I dont care. Art is a way of life. Its a community. When its so hard to get a break, we must stand together... It doesnt matter how big you get, you will always be on the edge. Its nice to have a like minded community you can bounce off. There will always be the haters, the rich expressionists and the rip off merchants who turn it into an issue of money, and not art. A commodity of paint and Canvas, pushing it to fuel their meglomaniac dreams, at the price of someone elses. When the community finally stands together, down will come the walls to their castles of money, and flow back into the community, where it belongs.
thanks again, to all the artists that also came and showed.....
ralphael borer
&
LUKAS OBERER
AT B L A M B L A M B L A M . . . .
We Used the BBB gallery as the meeting point, pretty classic, white walls and parkete floor (apart from a few explosions of color) We wanted people to think that when they came into the gallery (Check big photo on page 3) that this was the whole exhibition. Just the front room, with paintings on the wall. When they found out that the exhibition actually started next door. It was a pleasent suprise. As there was still a whole lot to see.
crack attack wink style::::
A gallery space, needs to be just that.... a space, to spill your colors over. So many gallerys spend so much time, money and effort to create a white neutral space, that they make the wall and floors un-available to the artists.... This is a mistake. The artists need to spill themselves also on the walls without limitations. Ways can be found to fill holes, paint over and repair later. (If necessary)
With the same concept, we continue on. When the buildings all come down around us, and are replaced, it will still be the same. Things change all around us. We live in a super-fast broad-band world, that just goes with the flow. Not even really suprised, with the amazing leaps teachnology makes. We just keep push-building on. Things are updated so fast. What happens to that imediate past? Maybe we should think further to the end result instead of the „version0.1“ way? There is alot of modern technology junk about to come our way..... The future is what we open ourselves to. Using the past experiences as markers, to an unknown, and exciting road we travel, called life.
you can never truely cover somethings::::
W H ATS N E X T . . .
committed.... Time is alway relative in thins like this. We thought we have given ourselves enough time for the project, but very quickly, we realised, time would be short. We just found more energy, and more hours in the day. Sleeping short, and working long. Still even so, towards the end we really started running out of time. Its projects like this that you really get an understanding of bigger things, and the reality of the time it actually takes to create them..... Next time we definatley do better time management.....
a very small part of the construction::::
But I guess its same with everything artistic, details into details, into details, into details.... More time, more details and you will still run out of time.
C O N TA C T A N D T H A N K S . . . . We would like to thank all of those who were involved with this project, Ele, Simone, Cla, Pino. Carmen Roshard and Doris Fanconi, Remo, Andre the giant,Hans Gut, EK productions, Sammy, Roll Laden, Number One, Besucherbergwerk Bergbaumeuseum www.blamblamblam.ch soup@blamblamblam.ch www.arthouseproject.ch „BLAMBLAMBLAM GALLERY“ (facebook) „BLAMAG“ (Facebook)