Cheese is time, time is money, money is monopoly

Artists: Mohamed Bourouissa, Stef Kamaris, Marie Vedel

Organized by SIGNAL – Center for Contemporary Art (Malmö)

 

Opening on March 15, 6-9 p.m.

 

To live costs money. For some, the market is ready to turn a business idea from dream to reality. For others, the door is only open to parallel activities based on the same business model—supply and demand. The difference is spelled exclusion. Exclusion from the market, from society, from the right to an equal life.

 

Mohamed Bourouissa’s video La valeur du produit (The value of the product) is a kind of crash course in business administration. The entrepreneurial strategy of selling a product at the right price and maintaining the balance between supply and demand is common to all commercial activities. The same objective, the same vocabulary, just a different product—the sale of “organic” goods to bring in “wheat” (French slang for money).

 

Cheese is time, time is money, money is monopoly. Stef Kamaris’ sculptural objects and material experiments could not express it better. They are dripping with excess, like extra-everything materialized. PacMen made from cheese (Emmental and Babybel), cakes made from Danablu, slot machines, and credit rocks—a constant quest for the desire of consumption. The logic of free market democratization is skewed, and monopoly is the injustice of the economic system to win the game.

 

Marie Vedel’s pigmented wax tongues, The Singer’s Tongue, reach up from the ground and seem to sing out their grief, desire, and lost love. The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice embodies lovers, but the crooning Orpheus fails to rescue his beloved from the underworld. His desire takes over, and at the same moment, he loses her forever. Her name, Eurydice, means the profound justice.

 

Individual success is measured in money. To the tune of “Foetus” by Booba, one of the key figures in French hip-hop, euro coins are produced en masse by La Monnaie de Paris (Paris Mint). In Mohamed Bourouissa’s version, the coins are embossed with the rapper’s portrait. The raw lyrics of society are monetized, and the profit circle is complete. 

 

Mohamed Bourouissa (1978, Blida, Algeria) lives and works in Paris, France.

Stef Kamaris (1977, Heraklion, Greece) lives and works in Athens, Greece. 

Marie Vedel (1990, Copenhagen, Denmark) lives and works in Copenhagen and Sønderho, Denmark. 

SIGNAL – Center for Contemporary Art (1998) is an independent art space in Malmö, Sweden.

 

Curators: Elena Tzotzi and Carl Lindh, Co-directors of SIGNAL

Graphic design: Valters Kalsers

Lighting designer: Romāns Medvedevs

Translations: Valts Miķelsons

Program Director: Zane Onckule

Executive Director: Evita Goze

Project Assistant: Katrīna Jaugiete

Communication: Austra Stupele

 

Supported by:

Ministry of Culture, State Culture Capital Foundation, Danish Arts Foundation, Absolut, Valmiermuižas alus.