'A Fountain'
An installation by Stefan Benchoam for the White Cubicle Toilet Gallery.
George and Dragon Public House
Wednesday, 13 July 2011 20:00-24:00
"A Fountain" consists of an improvised urinal installed outside of the George and Dragon Public House that, through a series of pipes that run through the pub itself, lands bodily fluids directly into the toilet inside of the White Cubicle Toilet Gallery.
Stefan Benchoam (Guatemala, 1983) is an artist and co-founder of Proyectos Ultravioleta -a contemporary art space based in Guatemala City, focused on experimentation and education- and co-founder of the Buró de Intervenciones Públicas (BIP). His work is multifaceted, with at least two distinct lines of investigation: one that is developed in the public realm through actions and interventions, and another one that aims to question the notion of authenticity while blurring the lines between the work of the artist and that of the curator.
THE WHITE CUBICLE TOILET GALLERY measures 1.40 by 1.40 meters, is located within the Ladies Toilet of the George and Dragon, and works with no budget, staff or boundaries. White Cubicle presents a discerning programme of local and international manifestations as an antidote to London’s sometimes extremely commercial art scene.
Past exhibitions have included the work of Deborah Castillo, Gregorio Magnani, Butt Magazine, Federico Herrero, Terence Koh, i-Cabin, Steven Gontarski, Pixis Fanzine/Princess Julia and Hanah, General Idea and avaf, Basso Magazin, Carl Hopgood, Giles Round, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Superm, (Brian Kenny and Slava Mogutin), Elkin Calderon, Wolfgang Tillmans, Calvin Holbrook/Hate Magazine, Husam el Odeh, Simon Popper, Fur, Dik Fagazine, Rick Castro/Abravanation, Jean Michel Wicker, Noki, Ellen Cantor, Karl Holmqvist, Julie Verhoeven, Aldo Chaparro, Esther Planas, Nikos Pantazopoulos, Luis Venegas, Twinklife, Rocky Alvarez, Benedetto Chirco, STH Magazine, Elmgreen & Dragset, Sico Carlier...
http://stefanbenchoam.com/
http://elbipbip.com/
http://uvuvuv.com/
http://www.whitecubicle.org/
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Un texto que salio post show en el campo ingles!! enjoy!! xxx
ReplyDeleteStefan Benchoam Public Pissoire improvised and adapted with at hand material from the building and plumbing shops of near by
to be set up at the exterior of the pub George and Dragon, the site for the White Cubicle Gallery for his first solo show in London, had the elements of minimalist interventions that generate a whole disturbance of the space, and proposes improvised reactions to it.
Starting on one of the facades , the pissoire's pipes cross and side track one face of the building to turn a corner an enter the public space of the Public House, crossing it and dividing it on two zones, challenging movement and behavior from the costumers to the alien tube that some how obstructed their learned route to the bar, the toilets and way in or out doors.
Finally , the whole long and adventurous trajectory of the modest pipes ends on a fountain effect, where from the open hole of the tube end's, the urine, that had been previously poured by the pisser, on the outdoors ready made public facility to be used as pissoire on a kind of huge brick podium /plinth and across the pub and between the costumers/public, arrives to the toilet pristine white seat and can get its full circle transit and again be re-distributed on the underground huge pipes that cross the metropolis filled with our very basic creations.
To associate this action to a sort of metaphorical link of meaning to the politics of the distribution ,net-workings and its possible modifications on the art commodity circulation and value , trough out some points of fracture, questioning and detour by surprise unexpected turns, is sort of unavoidable and relevant at a times when all issues related have been called to revision.
On the realm of Public Interventions, we have learned to understand , there is a hidden , subterranean ,pipeline like transit of re-interpretation and re-evaluation between relations of labor /work/art worker/art work and has on the aesthetics of Stefan Benchoam's
very simple and basic construction (of an usually covered and not visible structure) revealed to the outside world, of and urinal doubled as fountain and its adventurous trajectory, a fresh, humorous and playful revitalizing take.