Rirkrit Tiravanija

How does one recreate artworks that were originally events? Rirkrit Tiravanija’s solution is nothing short of brilliant. For his first museum retrospective, Tiravanija has decided to present empty spaces. Outfitted with a tidy white label, each space is designated as corresponding to one of seven sites, whether gallery room or museum hall, where an earlier intervention took place. As one moves through the vacant rooms, one can follow three different guides who evoke the people, things and activities behind every bygone installation: a Boijmans Museum guide, who patiently asks visitors to imagine missing cooking pots and recording equipment; the sci-fi author Bruce Sterling, whose texts emanate as a sound installation throughout the exhibition; and, finally, a portable audio guide, which elaborates on fine points in Tiravanija’s oeuvre, from the recipe for Pad Thai to the importance of processes over products. By showing nothing, Tiravanija not only solves the problem of the documentation of ephemeral artworks but also honors their iconoclastic dimension—a clear response to critics who claim that relational aesthetics kowtows to the event culture in the society of the spectacle. Here, the events of the past are revived, not as still photographs or defunct artifacts, but in the active imagination of living visitors.