2017 0033 anders bonnesen: reise um mein zimmer
september 10 — october 20, 2017
viewable 24 hours
vernissage on saturday, september 9, 19 h
“There’s no more attractive pleasure than to follow one’s ideas
wherever they lead, as the hunter pursues his game, without even trying
to keep to any set route. And so, when I travel through my room
I rarely follow a straight line ...”
In 1790 a young aristocrat named Xavier de Maistre was punished for dueling and placed under house arrest for 42 days. To ease his boredom de Maistre set out to write the infamous Voyage Autour de Ma Chambre, which is his account of a “journey” within his own room.
For his show at die raum, Anders Bonnesen has converted de Maistre’s domestic travel experiences and rousing descriptions of his sofa, among other objects, into a wooden “Brio” train set complete with points, junctions, and viaducts. Reise um mein Zimmer consists of approximately 2000 wooden pieces that carry every single word that the novel contains in its Danish translation. More or less meaningful sentences can be constructed from these parts.
A big pile of words, Reise um mein Zimmer speaks to Bonnesen’s general interest in the materiality of language and the complex relationship between language, objects, and space.
