curating.org
Master Project
Andrea Roca, Zoë Meyer and Renata Burckhardt
Spill the beans!
1 February–1 March 2010
Perla-Mode, Zurich
San Keller, Habib Asal, Stefan Burger, Haus am Gern, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Alain Rappaport, Gruppe secret gäng (Irion, Manon Reichenbach and August Blum)
The exhibition ‚Spill the Beans‘ focuses on the existing structures, economies and politics of the contemporary art world, showing various works by artists who reflect on, emphasize and criticize these structures and mechanisms and subvert the control of recognition processes in the art world or offensively exploit them for their own purposes.
The shop windows of Perla Mode are plastered with posters showing acts of vandalism against selected art institutions in Berne. The poster series with the title Show Us Buy Us Sell Us by Haus am Gern (Barbara Meyer Cesta & Rudolf Steiner) consists of reproductions of 25 drawings, worded as threatening letters and addressed to art institutions in order to demonstrate and radically question the power structures in the art system.
The setting in the exhibition space of Perla Mode, designed by scenographer Melanie Mock, is dominated by an extensive orange platform whose shape is reminiscent of a sales point in an art establishment. The circular podium in the exhibition space is used as a stage for various formats: On the one hand it serves as a platform for scenic interventions which focus on various dynamics within the contemporary art business. Various players within the art system make their appearances as fictional characters in the exhibition space, to be imitated, parodied and questioned. The scenic interventions, written by author Renata Burckhardt and played by the actors Mirjam Japp and Dominik Locher as well as the voice of actor Samuel Streiff, take place as programme items at the vernissage as well as on Wednesday, 10th February 2010 and Friday, 12th February 2010, at 21:00.