PETPAINTING SALON (2006)

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A happening at the Kuub theatre and an exhibition at the de Warande in Turnhout, Belgium.

A special event conceived for regional petowners & artists at the Kuub theatre: an afternoon filled with live music, painting, drawing, and pets.

An exhibition of the results of this event took place afterwards at the de Warande. All the artists who participated in the happening became part of the exhibition, which was staged in a theatrical manner.

This work was another attempt at challenging progressive and conservative art conceptions within one and the same project. No direct confrontation seems possible between these conceptions, therefore we decided to mix up their respective values in one project. Using well known cultural institutions and inviting local amateur artists to perform and to exhibit within specific conceptual frameworks appeared a method to us for experimenting with these conceptions. The event and the exhibition turned out to be commercially succesfull; many of the paintings where sold immediately during the happening and the exhibition was well visited, “ in the majority by a conservative art public. On the other hand, the project raised criticism from a progressive art public, questioning the sustainability of such a populist policy on a larger cultural scale.