© Rirkrit Tiravanija/Courtesy Neugerriemschneider, Berlin

Rirkrit Tiravanija, installation view of "Chew the Fat" (2008) at Neugerriemschneider, Berlin, 2009. 12 monitors, 12 dvd players, 24 headphones, 12 wooden boxes, 12 zabutons. Film compilation, 2 hrs., 4 min., 40 sec.

November 2009 Reviews

Target Practice

The Audio Show

Dorothy Iannone

Anton Vidokle

Walid Raad

Richard Long

Song Dong

Tobias Rehberger Douglas Gordon Philippe Parreno Liam Gillick Rirkrit Tiravanija Andrea Zittel Angela Bulloch Carsten Holler

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Commissioned for "theanyspacewhatever" exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York last year, the video Chew the Fat, by the Argentine-born Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, received a European showing this summer in Berlin’s Neugerriemschneider gallery, where it was spread across two rooms. In the smaller one, two monitors, three inches apart, faced off on a steel table, each showing a close-up of the artist in sunglasses, periodically intoning "Boom," while on a nearby canvas was written the helpful gloss "Boom boom, not boomboom." In the larger room, furnished with a warm orange carpet, monitors placed before cushions played Tiravanija’s interviews with other artists who rose to prominence in the ’90s, shown where they feel most at home.

Tiravanija asks each how he or she became an artist, then lets the conversation flow. From his kitchen in Berlin, Douglas Gordon discusses his impromptu trip to the 2006 FIFA World Cup Final; Liam Gillick answers e-mails from his kitchen in New York. Elizabeth Peyton sips beer in a garden while considering her travel plans; Pierre Huyghe wanders cheerfully through a field with his dog. Also seen chatting are Angela Bulloch, Tobias Rehberger, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Carsten Höller, Jorge Pardo, Philippe Parreno, and Andrea Zittel.

The result is a group portrait of friends and allies. There is also a strong sense of self-congratulation. The film resembles a well-made promotional video advertising a set of international art stars. Nevertheless, everybody seems personable, and it is ultimately a hard film to dislike.

"Rirkrit Tiravanija" originally appeared in the November 2009 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' November 2009 Table of Contents.