A conceptual installation consisting of surgical equipment was sent to a hospital in Salamiyah.
Superflex’s instillation Hospital Equipment, 2016. Photo: von Bartha Gallery and the artists
The project by the Danish art collective Superflex not only saves lives, but also changes the collecting itself. It’s the second time that artists Jakob Fenger, Rasmus Nielsen and Bjørnstjerne Christiansen have sent pieces of much-needed surgical equipment to a hospital. In March 2016, the receiver was a hospital in the Gaza Strip. This time, the equipment was delivered to Salamiyah, Syria, to save victims of the country’s civil war.
Superflex’s instillation Hospital Equipment at the Salamieh Hospital, Syria, 2017. Photo: Ali Shahin, Superflex, von Bartha Gallery
The installation was on display at von Bartha Gallery in Switzerland in February. An unnamed collector bought the artwork, but the artists turned collecting into an artistic act. The idea is that the equipment must be used for intended purposes. According to them, the project is a “readymade upside-down”, as a collector receives only a photo or a certificate of authenticity instead of a physical object, artnet.com reports.
“We want to challenge collecting itself,” Bjørnsterne Christiansen says. “Do you have to have the object, or can it be just as valuable to you that it be activated somewhere else?”
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