Bergen Assembly is a multi-year model for art production based on public events that take place every three years in the city of Bergen. Each edition is led by an organiser who is free to find new ways of conceiving the event, so that the Bergen Assembly takes on a different form and format each time.
Image above: Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Exotourisme (with Christophe Van Huffel), 2002, video (colour, sound), room installation comprises architectural structure with a plywood pedestal, screen, duration: 43 min. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022. Photo © Andrea Rossetti.
Convened by Saâdane Afif and curated by Yasmine d’O, the 2022 Bergen Assembly is divided among seven “characters” represented by seven exhibitions at different venues in Bergen. Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster participates in the exhibition “The Tourist”, located in Permanenten (KODE 1), Nordahl Bruns gate 9, 5014 Bergen. On display are the cinematic environment Exotourisme and a new work from the artist’s Chambres series.
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster has often explored the idea of tourism as a way of conceiving and entering a new landscape or world. Exotourisme, 2002 (with a soundscape by Christophe Van Huffel) is a cinematic environment that reflects back to the viewer their own image, their desire for transcendent encounters and their desire to lose themselves in a new or alternative world. Gonzalez-Foerster’s Exotourisme was projected in a closed space as part of the exhibition “The Tourist” and offers a cosmic, even existential perspective on the experience and possibilities of tourism.
The new work Exochambre (2022) from the chambres series at Permanenten looks like a backstage room – could it even be the backstage area for the band Exotourisme (a collaboration between Gonzalez-Foerster and Julien Perez), who are giving a concert during the exhibition opening? In conjunction with Gonzalez-Foerster’s intergalactic Odyssey film environment, the latest chambre is a border zone that exists somewhere between occupation and emptiness, real and virtual space.
WHEN?
Exhibition dates: Thursday, 8. September – Friday, 11. November 2022
Special Event: Thursday, 8 September 2022 – Exotourisme by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Julien Perez.
WHERE?
Permanenten (KODE 1), Nordahl Bruns gate 9, 5014 Bergen, Norway
