PANE E TULIPANI INFINITE DINNER II

April 2016 - May 2016

Location: Hamburg, Pane e Tulipani

Commissioned by: Galerie Oel-Früh

Photography: Antje Sauer, Marc Brüneke, Studio C.A.R.E.

Studio C.A.R.E. hacked a restaurant – not into (too many) pieces and there were no hackled animals either – but the location “Pane e Tulipani” in Hamburg underwent real change for one evening:

The Infinite Dinner

Together with the GARDEN collective we set up the second episode of the infinite dinner. As a development from its first occurrence during the project “Vandalism Change Research Entstuckung”, we added game aspects to the dinner – based on our experiences with the game Trojan House – that incited the dinner guests to take action in the restaurant and exhibition environment.

Through the evening the whole restaurant became a more and more surreal place, with graffiti in the toilets, smashed paintings in the exhibition room, a hole in the wall that led to a secret kitchen area and the main aspect of each dinner course: the collapsing of the table tops. Everything on the two tables rushed down ending up in a big vessel which was then handed dramatically through the smashed hole into the kitchen (we claimed the rest would be worked into the next round – it’s an Infinite Dinner!)

All this in order to widen expectations, change positions towards the use of a seemingly destined space. To generate an experience of beauty in deconstruction and freedom in taking distance from things, functions, surroundings and common concepts.

The invitations for the dinner were handwritten porcelain dishes, smashed with a hammer, sealed with a vacuum device and sent by mail. There were no plates used during the dinner though.

Smashed paintings

In order to transform these ideas into a certain piece of work, a concept of destroyable multi-layered and multi-style paintings was created. These works use different narratives of gestural and action painting, kitsch, high gloss and destruction to tell the story of beauty out of destruction.

A thousand thanks to all performers: Babak, Jeanette, Jivan, Jil, Lydia, Marc, Stefanje, Ray; to the GARDEN collective; to Pane e Tulipani; and of course to the Gallery Oel-Früh team!

Thank you Deutsche Post for being very open-minded and sending our tableware invitations!


paintings: Sebastian Kubersky

menu: GARDEN collective

film: Ray Juster, Johannes Hoffmann

Booklet and text for the event created by Jeannette Petrik