À nos amis at SALOON

Artists: Frieder Haller, Andrzej Steinbach, Jasmin Werner

Exhibition title: À nos amis

Curated by: Moritz Scheper

Venue: SALOON, Brussels, Belgium

Date: June 2 – 24, 2018

Photography: Lola Pertsowsky, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and SALOON

He is still talking about the red wine. I really don’t know what I am still doing here, but the neighbour seems to have settled for company. We do not see each other often, do we. Naturally, as six months of the year he lives in his house on the Cote d’Azur. He just recently had the terrace extended and an outdoor shower installed. Heavenly. Now he switched to current affairs, domestic politics, foreign affairs, fiscal politics. Only yesterday he read that American students actually have no chance of paying off their student loans before retirement. Terrible. I had actually said that I didn’t want any more wine, but alright. And how we’re not getting any steady jobs anymore, everything is only ever temporary. And no one can afford anymore to build a house. It can’t go on like this, it is all about to fall apart. Yes, the wine tastes great. He doesn’t understand why we’re not going to the barricades. How come we don’t give a shit? The lights are about to be turned off, the climate is also going crazy, we can’t simply let it go on like this. We should be…, it’s not possible that…. . The bulbous nose dives into the glass again, sucks up the expensive aromas.

Actually I just wanted to drop off the parcel. But now he wants to pass on his wisdom. He probably doesn’t see that the terrific pension his semi-nationalised employer threw at him, has to be earned somehow. His generation fucked the pension and the financial system and generally the ecological balance of this planet, but kept this realisation for their retirement. Others are supposed to sort out the mess whilst our parental generation happily helps with brilliant advice from the couch or their finca on Mallorca. Our life plans remain prototypes, impossible to implement. No time, no money. Rent and loans let us do all the things we never wanted to do. But apparently it’s not enough that we have to struggle all our lives in order for their investments to yield a return. We are also supposed to listen to them as they morally right themselves with their alleged self-realisation. Keep your fucking red wine, we want something else. À nos amis.