2 października 2015
When “The Island (KEN)” was recently presented at the New Museum in New York, it attracted a lot of attention. The installation – a hybrid product that unites kitchen and bathroom – was created by the New York-based artist collective DIS in collaboration with Dornbracht and Mike Meiré as codesigner. In the context of the triennial exhibition, it became the site of talks and performances. Now the installation is coming to Europe for the first time: From 9 October 2015 to 31 January 2016, “The Island (KEN)” will be on show at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris as part of the exhibition “CO-WORKERS – Network as Artist”. The exhibition concept was developed by the DIS artists who will also be the curators of the 9th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art in 2016.
The essentials at a glance:
The project: Installation “The Island (KEN)” – Cooperation between the New York-based artist collective DIS, Dornbracht and Mike Meiré (codesigner)
Description: Hybrid between kitchen and bathroom
The news: First presentation of the installation in Europe
The exhibition: “CO-WORKERS – Network as Artist”, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
Time frame: 9 October 2015 – 31 January 2016
Dornbracht is a globally active manufacturer of high-quality fittings and accessories for bathrooms and kitchens, and has been initiating and sponsoring selected exhibitions and cultural projects since 1996. Fostering a vivid exchange with independent artists, musicians, architects and designers, the company has expanded the idea of bath culture and cultivated a whole new vision of life in bathroom and kitchen habitats – an ambition that is also expressed in the brand’s current claim “Culturing Life”. Its long-running cultural commitment through its Culture Projects provides Dornbracht with an ongoing source of fresh inspiration while advancing its innovation and technology leadership.
It is the company’s extraordinary involvement in cultural discourse as well as its premium standard of aesthetics and quality which motivated the New York-based artist collective DIS to approach Dornbracht with the idea of a joint project designed especially for the renowned New Museum Triennial. In collaboration with creative director and designer Mike Meiré, who has accompanied the brand for over 20 years now and served as curator and contributor to the Dornbracht Culture Projects, they developed “The Island (KEN)”. This hybrid product unites the (social) kitchen and the (private) bathroom, raising new questions regarding learned patterns of logic and application. The precision and high-end finishing of the work provides the new “product” with a seriousness that inevitably results in a confusion of the observers’ customary viewing habits.
As a central piece, “The Island (KEN)” features Dornbracht Horizontal Shower with an integrated drinking station. Horizontal Shower is an innovative application that for the first time provides a reclining shower experience. It combines six water bars set above a reclining space. A control element allows the user to select one of the three water choreographies – balancing, energizing or de-stressing. The complementary part of the installation consists of a kitchen unit including a sink, an induction field and the Dornbracht fitting Lot with a digital Smart Water control element and a foot sensor. Sculptural in its appearance, with an ultraflat one-piece spout, Lot is a highly architectonic fitting that perfectly complements the installation’s minimalistic ambience.
“The Island (KEN)” embodies a perfect symbiosis of design and art. Merging both disciplines reveals the aesthetic and atmospheric power of Dornbracht products, placing them in an entirely different setting. The result is a space that bursts the boundaries of conventional functional rooms and allows the viewer to see the (Dornbracht) world in a new way.
“By definition, ‘KEN’ means ‘spiritual horizon’”, explains Mike Meiré. “I just thought it was a perfect fit for this hybrid unit. It pushes our thinking, opens the mind and questions our expectations of structures and everyday objects – the way they are normally supposed to be.”
“The Island (KEN)” will be on site at the ARC, the experimental space of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, in the framework of the exhibition “CO-WORKERS – Network as Artist” from 9 October 2015 to 31 January 2016. To accompany the installation, DIS will present the short clip “Renotopia” which was produced during the premiere in New York (available at www.vimeo.com/121825547).
Na zdjęciu: „The Island (KEN)” – stworzona przez DIS we współpracy z Dornbracht i zaprojektowana we współpracy z Mike’em Meiré.
About DIS
DIS is a New York-based collective composed of Lauren Boyle, Solomon Chase, Marco Roso and David Toro. Its cultural interventions are manifest across a range of media and platforms, from site-specific museum and gallery exhibitions to ongoing online projects. Most notably, these include DIS Magazine, which was co-founded with Nick Scholl, Patrik Sandberg and S. Adrian Massey III in 2010 as a virtual platform that examines art, fashion, music and culture while constructing and supporting new creative practices.
Since being founded, the magazine has expanded into an international community of writers, photographers, musicians and DJs. Recent ventures include DISimages, 2013, a fully operational stock photography agency that enlists artists to produce images available for private and commercial use, and DISown, an ongoing retail platform and laboratory intended to test the current status of the art object. Across its various endeavours, DIS explores the tension between popular culture and institutional critique, while facilitating projects for the most public and democratic of all forums – the Internet. DIS was recently appointed as curatorial team of the 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art in 2016.
More about DIS online:
About the exhibition “CO-WORKERS – Network as Artist”
From 9 October 2015 to 31 January 2016, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris is presenting at ARC (Animation, Recherche, Confrontation), its division for contemporary art, “CO-WORKERS – Network as Artist”: a selection of international artists trained during the 2000s whose innovative practices are largely based on networking. Mounted by the New York collective DIS, the exhibition foregrounds a new form of artistic expression for which the Internet serves as the most important source of inspiration.
The digital revolution has brought forth new modes of communication that promote and demand an uninterrupted flow of information. While remaining independent, the user is connected to numerous networks – professional, technical, artistic, cultural, etc. – that recognise no geographic boundaries: a form of organisation symptomatic of what sociologist Barry Wellman calls “networked individualism”. “The Internet of Things” revolves around the idea that humans are surrounded by things that constitute an environment termed “ambient intelligence”.
The contributing artists explore the boundaries of human intelligence and human consciousness as they investigate the way these can be extended to include machines, animals and other living organisms. In a society marked by data acceleration and the omnipresence of images, these artists work within a zone in which the boundaries between the private and public spheres are blurred and intimacy becomes “extimacy”.
In devising the exhibition’s scenography DIS has drawn on collective work spaces, shopping malls, and airport transit areas. The upshot is an event – a tight network of artworks, interactive installations and performances – that situates the museum in a world of an everlasting flow of data.
The exhibition themes will be the subject of talks and encounters integrated into “The Island (KEN)”. Guest artists include Aids-3D, Ed Atkins, Trisha Baga, Ian Cheng, Douglas Coupland, DIS, David Douard, Cécile B. Evans, GCC, Parker Ito, Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Mark Leckey, Clémence de La Tour du Pin, Shawn Maximo, Nøne Futbol Club, Aude Pariset, Rachel Rose, Hito Steyerl and Ryan Trecartin.
Exhibition curators: Angeline Scherf, Toke Lykkeberg, Jessica Castex
Scenography: DIS
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Joanna Bartnik
JBcomm
tel. +48 22 409 429 8
e-mail: joanna.bartnik@jbcomm.pl