We
read a text called “Art or Brend?” written by Henry Flynt in 1968. The text
is about some utopical alternative to art, alternative, that consist in the
simple things you do for the mere pleasure they cause you, things that you don’t
usually pay much attention to and that you don’t value especially. These things
that can be anything (fluffy pajamas or watching out he window or…anything)
are called in the text „your brend”. We found it interesting and useful to organize
meetings and discussions using the brend as a starting point, as a pretext.
We choused it as a reason for meetings because we feel that we need to relate
to art in a less pretentious and rigid way and to have a simpler and more authentical
attitude towards what we can do as artists. So we asked our friends and collaborators
what their brend is and for a few days we met at H.arta and we talk about what
we consider as being art and how can we work together. The brend is of course
just a game, but we hope it to be a starting point for some interesting discussions.
We transformed partially the space, trying to make it really comfortable and
appropriate to spend more time in it (with big armchairs and colorful walls),
while the rest of the space stays rough. We are also working on a book with
images and texts in which the participants to the project (students and young
artists) are explaining their brend.