1979 Vrijthof Maastricht. "The snow that remains is all reserved for everyone"
1978 Jan van Eyck Academy Maastricht
1979 Billboard 1st Europe elections: reserved with artists from Jan v Eyck Academy
1979 Maastricht one hundred salads made with dog shit reserved for the dog owner
1980 "Time is all reserved for everyone" Suermondt Ludwig Museum Aachen
New York work period of two months 1980 - 1981
The artists Heenes and Wijnen mainly worked on the streets during the day and at night.
At night they went on a quest, where they soon encountered many street residents and alcoholics, and they became acquainted with various hamburger joints. Here they also met other artists such as Nam June Paik. During the day they worked on a series of slides. They marched through Manhattan with a large transparent banner. It had the word RESERVED written on it. They took pictures of mainly the largest skyscrapers, including the text of the banner. The making of the 120 slides did not go unnoticed and led to two performances in two galleries under the title New York Feeling.
Seven weeks hitchhiking
They traveled to Canada via Boston in six, seven weeks and stayed in Montreal, made a reservation installation there. Traveled back to the USA via Toronto via Chicago to Boulder near Denver. From there to Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Flagstaff Phoenix, towards Tuson to San Diego, then to Los Angles via Santa Monica and Santa Barbara to Santa Cruz and San Francisco. They did everything by hitchhiking and mainly stayed at addresses of people they had met before. Once they rented a car to travel to James Turrell and his Red Crater as arranged. Earlier on a special occasion, it was an invitation to the retrospective at Turrell's Whitney Museum, the two received an invitation to fly with him back to his Red Volcano, where he had begun building. Unfortunately, they had scheduled the NY Feeling 1 performance in White Columns. That's why they rented this car to travel to him. Somewhere halfway the car broke down and they were without a telephone or other means of communication. After hours they found a farmer with a tractor who could help them. They never reached Red Crater and James. They never reached Turrell and its red volcano.
New York Feeling 1
Location: White Columns, Spring Street, New York
1980
Performance
Duration: 12 minutes
2 slide projectors display Reserved New York on 2 walls (120 slides)
Sound track: Brooklyn Bridge
Steel double arch, gold paint, white loincloth
The performance begins with an audio track of roaring traffic on Brooklyn Bridge, sounding rather like swarms of bees. At the same time, the projection of 120 slides commences on the whole breadth of two walls. The two performers enter. One wears a white loincloth, and the other dressed in black and holds a pot of paint and two brushes. The first performer stands with his face to the wall. The second picks up a cast-iron framework and places it carefully on the shoulders of the first. The weight of this arched frame* is obvious. He then takes the brushes and paint pot, and begins painting the tapering ribs of the curved top with gold paint. After a while, it becomes clear that the cast-iron frame is becoming too heavy for the other to endure it. He risks collapsing under the weight, while the second performer nonchalantly continues gilding the ribs until the situation seems so unbearable that the latter finally relieves his partner from the lethal burden. This performance is a reference to the Statue of Liberty and aims to show that freedom and peace constitute to many a massive onus, which must be countermanded.
- originally it was a fence placed to protect a window of a bank building
invitation / poster
New York Feeling II
location: Broadway 626, New York
1981
Performance
duration: 20 minutes
slide projection 1: image proportions 1:1, “winos” (1 slide)
slide projection 2: Reserved New York (120 slides)
interior space: sculpture of empty bottles and cans
soundtrack: Brooklyn Bridge
voices: from laughter to cramped laughter
2nd part of the performance: In the course of about seven nights, empty bottles and cans that the “winos” threw away in the many squalid and repulsive places in Manhattan were collected in a shopping trolley.
3rd part of the performance took place in the multi-disciplinary space at 626 Broadway:
Slide projection 1: 120 slides in transitions of Reserved New York.
Slide projection 2: slide portraying 3 alcoholics, one of whom lies on a heap of garbage cans.
The space was illuminated only by the two slide projectors. The performance consisted of building a sculpture of empty cans and bottles in the projected light of a slide portraying three vagrants. The intention was that the shadow cast by the sculpture would reach the same height as one of the vagrants lying on empty cans. The repeatedly collapsing bottle sculpture, the audio fragment of the rumbeling traffic crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, together with the hopeless convulsive laughter of the two artists was an ode to the countless New York vagrants they encountered on the streets at night.
The 120 slides with de text RESERVED showed New York with his skyscrapers in total contrast to the daily events that took place below.
