I will now reveal a kind of secret, which was perhaps always meant or expected to be revealed sooner or later. The secret is Don’t look at me gallery, a secret gallery that existed for one year, where we worked on avoiding an audience – not entirely, but by limiting the number of people who would attend.This limited visibility made it possible for the artists to show works they were unsure about – that were, for example embarrassing, personal, or poor-quality.
We used various strategies to control the flow of visitors. Since we applied for funding from Copenhagen Municipality and the Danish Arts Foundation, a certain formal openness was still required. To begin with, we had a slightly strange address. It was sort of on the back of the building, with a number that made sense if you used some form of logic, but perhaps wasn’t clearly marked on official maps. We posted a story on the social media platforms we were ashamed to still be using, which we deleted shortly after (I had told Copenhagen Municipality that I would do PR). We sent a few invitations by letter. And we hinted to someone about an exhibition that was a bit secret, somewhere in a basement outside of town. This secrecy created, in many cases, increased interest, which confirmed my decision that this could only go on for a limited time. A secret gallery is far too exciting to stay secret.
So, in order that I could continue working with the embarrassing works, Don’t look at me gallery moved into my brain – as a memory, a wonderful time, a transformative, exploratory process, an experience of being free, of having a “minus-career”* – *a job you pay to do instead of getting paid for doing it. -exactly as I had dreamt. We were so incredibly anti-, or against everything. We were determined to make ugly, bad, and disgusting work. You might think, “isn’t that what artists already do?” Yes, sure, but we were really going to make embarrassing things. You should be able to locate the embarrassment at a central position in your torso. It’s a pain or movement, where your stomach twists. – a bit like riding a rollercoaster, that moment your stomach drops. You melt or fall helplessly through the floor into a room with no heating, and only a rusty drain in the middle. You want to keep sinking into it, or at least let the artwork seep through. A solitary audience stands there, or perhaps just a confused neighbor who was on their way to the laundry room and looks at you in fright.
– “What are you doing here, exactly?”
– “I’m an artist,” you whisper, as if it were some sort of apology.
Now the gallery resides in my brain, but I imagine it could also reside in other brains, if one wants it to. I think I’m not the only one drawn to making embarrassing works. You want to be where it’s uncomfortable and feels wrong in the right way – a kind of kick or heightened sense of presence. The adrenaline sends a signal of importance to the nervous system. Then you start thinking about those in power within the art world, and then maybe your parents, colleagues outside and inside the art field, or neighbors who might get the wrong idea. They could jump to conclusions., Maybe they will start talking to each other.
To move forward, artists often grab hold of a kind of curtain that they can hold in front of themselves. The curtain can have varying degrees of transparency — and it’s difficult for artists themselves to understand how transparent it is. The light hits it at just such an angle that it’s hard to tell, unless you walk around it. But the artist cannot walk around the curtain. The artist stands behind it, clutching it tightly.
We will, in a publication, continue the work with the curtain – ironing it, reinforcing it, or folding it. We will repair it, replace it, or perhaps in some cases, crumple it into a ball and throw it in someone’s face. Major revelations are not at all necessary, except in the imagination. We still have Don’t look at me gallery inside the brain; in the brain, we can imagine versions no one will ever see.
I also think that, after all, there are infinitely many inaccessible spaces available outside the brain if needed: behind the bulletin board, under the washing machine – or perhaps down there in the drain, if it can be unscrewed, or if the work can be realised in a sufficiently fluid form. I don’t know if the drain continues somewhere, so the work may need to be limited in scope if it is to pass unnoticed. Inside the brain, you don’t have to limit yourself, but some negotiation may need to take place outside.