The idea was to create a kind of “trans-national neighbourhood” connecting’ the Nordic and Danish pavilions in a single project to be developed jointly. What better solution then than to commission it to a Danish and a Norwegian artist, with their direct experience of trans-national partnership?
Danish artist Michael Elmgreen and Norwegian Ingar Draset present one of their extravagant reflections on contemporary dynamics with the creation of a shared space entitled “The Collectors” in the two pavilions. They are in fact the curators of an allegorical but ‘live’ stage constructed with the participation of over twenty international artists and designers who have been called upon to transform the public space into a private scenario, a house “for sale”.
Accompanying potential buyers around these renovated domestic spaces will be an estate agent who will recount the story of the Bergman-like family dramas that ‘animate’ the house in the Danish pavilion, connected by a long swimming pool to the Nordic one that houses the bachelor pad of the mysterious Mr B. Here again the physical experience of the house is combined with the emotional one staged by a group of dissolute youths who hang around the house drinking vodka.
A complex play of mirrors that shows artists that show the life of fictional characters that move around inside domestic environments and real objects, that interact with real people… in the orchestration of a project coordinated by two artists.
Here the social hyperrealism of Elmgreen&Dragset moves on an infinite number of planes and touches on the theme of collecting along with the psychological mechanisms that are concealed behind the choice of particular objects for expressing one’s personality. The choice of particular works of art, along with furniture, accessories, books and clothes makes up the dense plot of this expositive story and of its inhabitants.
Alongside ‘collectors’ Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, the performance draws on the work of Thora Dolven Balke, Massimo Bartolini, Hernan Bas, Guillaume Bijl, Maurizio Cattelan, Pepe Espaliú, Tom of Finland, Simon Fujiwara, Han & Him, Laura Horelli, Martin Jacobson, William E. Jones, Terence Koh, Jani Leinonen, Klara Lidén, Jonathan Monk, Nico Muhly, Norway Says, Henrik Olesen, Nina Saunders, Vibeke Slyngstad, Sturtevant and Wolfgang Tillmans.