Ideal Standard, Installation view, Vanderborght/Dexia Art Center, Brussels
Ideal Standard, 2004, neon, transformer, 80 x 150 cm, edition of 3.
Ideal Standard (with Goshka Macuga, Simon Moretti, Karin Ruggaber, Veit Stratmann, and Anton Vidokle) curated by Elena Filipovic is part of the 2nd edition of the Maïs urban inititative, a festival of contemporary arts, film, media, sound, and performance held from October 29–November 14, 2004 in various Brussels locations. Ideal Standard is held at the Vanderborght/Dexia Art Center, rue de l'Ecuyer 50, Schildknaapstraat, 1000 Brussels where artists' projections, live concerts and other art events will be held nightly.
"Ideal Standard" is the name of a British toilet manufacturer. Countless porcelain receptacles bear this brand name that speaks of a meeting of the ‘ideal’ with what is in many ways its opposite—a middle of the road object useable by everyone, an industrial production ‘standard’. A contradiction, then. And a fitting one since Ideal Standard is an exhibition that isn’t really one. Dispersed on the ground level of a former furniture showroom, it explores the fine line between the ideal and the standard, between the autonomous artwork and the functional object and between the exhibition and the space of everyday life as seen by artists who consistently engage these divides. As a title for the exhibition, Ideal Standard is a double appropriation since it is borrowed from artist Simon Moretti whose neon sign replicating the signature script of the toilet company is both one of the show’s works but also serves as the exhibition’s own logo, thus effectively endowing the artwork with deliberate use value. Other projects on view respond to the 1930s building and its early history (Simon Moretti); cover it with an abstract geometry adapted from the logos of obscure and defunct businesses from Eastern Europe and Latin America (Anton Vidokle); illuminate it and quietly partition its space from above, subtly mimicking the forms of industrial lighting while using delicate materials, craft techniques, and a fragility that undermines industry standards (Karin Ruggaber); capture and frame the exhibition on its mirrored surface, thus incorporating other works in it while transforming our vision of an artwork that is autonomous and whole onto itself (Goshka Macuga); and redefine the spectators’ relationship to the floor and its architectural frame even as they do mundane tasks like sit or stand (Veit Stratmann). Focusing on the border area between an object and the architectural, between the framing structure and the thing itself, these artists’ works are united in the way they interrupt and re-define the patterns of movement and perception (intellectual and cognitive) within a space. Indeed for Ideal Standard these works insinuate themselves in their space and might be mistaken for the mundane mirrors, logos, lights, or chairs that we are confronted with each day were they not transfixed by contradictions.
Goshka Macuga (born in Poland, lives and works in London), Simon Moretti (born in Italy, lives and works in London), Karin Ruggaber (born in Germany, lives and works in London), Veit Stratmann (born in Germany, lives and works in Paris), Anton Vidokle (born in Russia, lives and works in New York).