‘In the beginning, a public museum was as much a rainy-day substitute for the park as a solemn temple to art; after the National Gallery first opened on [Trafalgar] square in 1838, people frequented the museum on bad-weather days to teach their children to walk or have a picnic.’
Flirting, playing, eating, drinking, talking, laughing is a group exhibition that explores the gallery space as potential meeting place, and a place for flirtatious conduct and romantic encounters. Historically the role of the museum was that of a public space, mimicking the park, where various forms of public activities took place. Flirting, playing, eating, drinking, talking, laughing opens up the possibility for some of these actions to be reinserted into a contemporary context. The exhibition presents four Scandinavian artists’ collaborations that each contribute with a different approach to the subject matter.
Flirting, playing, eating, drinking, talking, laughing is the first chapter in an ongoing examination of love, which takes shape as research focusing on different aspects of the phenomena: From nausea and narcissism to objectophilia, obsession and fan-love, the project looks into psychological conditions and disparate notions of love and their existence within society. The research examines heteronormative as well as unusual perceptions of the subject, starting with notes on flirtation and first encounters.
The exhibition is curated by Mette Kjærgaard Præst and Mette Woller
Quote from: Diana Fuss, Joel Sanders: “An Aesthetic Headache: Notes from the Museum Bench”, in Johanna Burton, Lynne Cooke, Josiah McElheny, Interiors, Annadale-on-Hudson, Berlin, 2012.
Thanks to Calvert 22 Gallery, Chisenhale Gallery, Pump House Gallery, Federico Vladimir Strate Pezdirc, Guillaume Breton, Patrizio Di Massimo and Zabludowicz Collection