The Artist is Not Present

This intervention happened on the Museumsquare where all museums were closed due to the COVID19 virus. Early morning we placed the installation on the square. (in the exact same spot where a year and half before the I Am Dream intervention covered the I Amsterdam letters)

Now that all physical exhibition spaces are gone, artists should transform public space
into exhibition space. #redreamyourcity

This intervention questions what happens when the artist is gone and leaves us with a
purely material world. It stood there for four days. Beautiful to see how the city embraced the work and how powerful it was. Or, as someone sent me on social media: " What once was a place for self-glorification in front of a tourist attraction, has now become a place of awareness and conversation."

The city officials did not seem to view it in the same way: they removed the work after four days. I am really happy that an eye witness sent me this photo of it being removed. In a way I think that the removal also was an art performance after which the artist really was not present anymore.

The Amsterdam Museum wrote about the removal in their "Corona in the City" online collection that this removal by the city officials "makes the question of how we give Amsterdam back to its citizens even more urgent."