Exhibition ‘Bouwvak’ (Construction Industry Holiday), on a building site in Uden (NL)
This exhibition took place while the builders were away on holiday. An enormous picnic table greets visitors, and it is not hard to imagine Italian guest workers sharing a meal here or having a refreshing cup of water from the bubbling water cooler. Seated at the table, you can watch a video recording of a sailing competition, while the sonatas of Johann Sebastian Bach pour out of two loudspeakers in Glenn Gould’s reserved, measured interpretation. The video comes from a film about the America’s Cup, but has been re-edited to drain away all the excitement of the competition. All we see are roll-ing waves and ships tacking in a salty breeze, and the surface of the sea on the screen seems to merge fluidly with the enormous wooden tabletop. This installation is, above all, an intuitively created counterpoint between diverse allusions to refreshment, relaxation and recrea-tion, a pleasant oasis of peace in what is normally a place of labour, noise and exertion. Construction Indus-try Holiday presents restorative idleness as the flipside of stressful efficiency. (Dominic van den Boogerd)