The Good Life – (a guided tour)
A film by Vermeir & Heiremans
In the background technicians are installing a prestigious exhibition, whilst a smartly dressed lady guides a group of people around a series of pristine white spaces, some of them filled with crates and wrapped-up paintings. Along the way, she not only comments on the art, but also reveals the building to her audience from a unique perspective. Describing interiors, great views and the city’s vibrant opportunities, the lady turns out to be an estate agent who is selling an up-market architectural proposal and a lifestyle that grafts the ‘value’ of art with its institutions. Moving through the labyrinthine building, she finds herself lost in narrow corridors and staircases. Meanwhile the future development projects itself into the group’s collective imagination, fed by the visionary architectural model on display.
“The Good Life (a guided tour) (2009) considers how ‘strategic foresight’ has become part of the socio-economic plan for art institutions in the twenty-first century, locating these institutions as central in the regeneration of cities. The Good Life (a guided tour) imagines a guided tour around a fictional art institution that has decided to sell off its building in order for it to be transformed into luxury apartments. The depicted institution – itself an uncanny ‘collage’ of four existing major European institutions – is utilizing its assets, promising major regeneration to its host city. The ‘neutrality’ of the gallery space allows it to be transformed into a real estate opportunity. The estate agent guiding the tour adopts a verbal style that veils any overt notion of gentrification, while conjuring up impressions of aspiration and opulence – a lifestyle fantasy projected onto an empty shell. Incorporating a maquette of the extraordinary building designed by the renowned architecture office 51N4E, The Good Life (a guided tour) adopts an approach that critically ‘over-identifies’ with its subject matter to the point of adopting all its rhetorical forms. The Keynesian thesis of pumping steroids into the demand is taken to a near-delusional aesthetic plane by generating unattainable desires for the individual.”
(Nav Haq: Current Account, Kaleidoscope, issue 10, Spring 2011)
The Good Life (a guided tour) exists both as an autonomous single screen video piece and as an installation version with 2 synchronised projections. In its first presentation, the video functioned as a ‘marketing tool’ for the fictional real estate development THE GOOD LIFE, which was the title of the Vermeir & Heiremans solo exhibition at Arnolfini, Bristol (UK) in Spring 2009. The show was curated by Nav Haq.
Watch the full-length video here:
HD Video, 16’, sound & colour, Belgium, English spoken, Dutch subtitles, 2009
Credits
Scenario, Direction, Production: Vermeir & Heiremans
Architecture: 51N4E – Office for Architecture
Sound: Justin Bennett, Milena Mizgiert (piano)
Sound Mix: Boris Debackere
Camera, Editing: Amir Borenstein, Katleen Vermeir
Costume: Mieja Hollevoet
Actors
Estate Agent: Carly Wijs
Artistic Director: Tom Trevor
Dialogues derived from quotes from real estate advertisements & brochures,
magazines and newspapers.
Film locations: Arnolfini (Bristol), Bristol Record Office (Bristol), Wiels (Brussels),
MuHKA (Antwerp), Z33 (Hasselt)
Production: Limited Editions
Distribution: ARGOS Centre for Art and Media, Brussels (BE), Jubilee (BE)
Commissioned by ARNOLFINI, Bristol (UK)
With the support of Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF)
Presentations to date:
Jubilee at Dazibao, Video Programme at Dazibao, Montreal (2019)
The Good Life, screening at Filmmuseum Potsdam (2015)
7 Raumthesen, group exhibition at Rotwand Gallery, Zurich (2014)
From Industry to Industrial , screening during New Industries Festival at HMKV, Dortmund, DE (2014)
Spekulantenwahn, zwischen okonomischer rationalitat und medialer imagination, screening programme by Florian Wust, Kino Arsenal, Berlin (2013)
Kapitalistisch Realisme, screening curated by Nienke Terpsma and Rob Hamelijnck, Rotterdam (2013)
Subjective Projections, video screening platform selected by Nav Haq and curated by Thomas Thiel at Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld, DE (2012)
The Collective Eye, In Search Of Another Subjectivity, group exhibition curated by Alonso + Craciun, Heinz Norbert Jocks and Dominique Garaudel at Centro de Exposiciones SUBTE, Montevideo, UY (2012)
Museum Outlet, group exhibition in collaboration with Arnolfini Art Center, Art Gwanju, Gwangju, KR (2012)
Hong Kong International Art Fair, screening organised by Carol Lu, Pekin Fine Arts, Hong Kong (2012)
Contour On Tour, group exhibition at the Flemish Parliament, Brussels (2012)
The Good Life, solo presentation Studioblau, curated by Maja Sokolova, Saarlandischer Kunstlerhaus, Saarbrücken, DE (2012)
Videonale On Tour: Ntmofa (National Taiwan Museum Of Fine Arts), Taichung, TW; Goma Glasgow Gallery Of Modern Art, Glasgow; Re:view Festival, Katowice, PL (2011)
How We Move, Screening programme at Salt, Istanbul (2011)
51N4E: Double or Nothing, presentation at Bozar, Brussels; Aa Gallery, London (2011)
Relationships Between Inner and Outer Space, programme curated by Dietmar Schwaerzler and Christian Helbock, Viennale – Vienna International Film Festival (2011)
The Museum Show, screening at Arnolfini, Bristol (2011)
Video_dumbo Festival, exhibition of contemporary video art at Dumbo, Brooklyn (2011)
Floating Spaces, screening at La Rada, Locarno, IT (2011)
Fake Estates, screening programme Rencontres Internationales at Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt, Berlin; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2011)
Bruxelles Capitale d’Europe, screening programme during VideoEX 2011, Zurich (2011)
10th Urban Nomad Film Fest, screening, Taipei a.o. (2011)
Videonale 13, group exhibition at Kunstmuseum Bonn (2011)
Fake Estates, screening programme during Rencontres Internationales, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010)
Piercing the Market Bubble – Positions Against Hypercapitalism, screening programme during Open Archives 2, Argos, Brussels (2010)
4th Cairo Video Festival, screening at Goethe Institute, Cairo (2010)
Trickster Makes This World, group exhibition at Nam June Paik Art Center, Yongin-si, KR (2010)
Doc.be, Screening programme curated by Zhang Yaxuan in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Kunming and Hefei, CH (2010)
Fundada Artists’ Film Festival 10, screening, Halifax, UK (2010)
Loop 2010, video festival and fair, Barcelona (2010)
Also Space, group exhibition curated by Carol Yinghua Lu, C-space, Beijing (2010)
Video Lounge, solo exhibition at CEAC (Chinese European Art Center), Xiamen (2009)
The Good Life, workshop and screening, New Media Department, Xiamen University, Xiamen (2009)
Notions of the Artist, screening at Kunstverein, Frankfurt (2009)
Kassel Documentary Film Festival, screening, Kassel (2009)
Economies of Art in an Entrepreneurial Society, conference and screening, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge (2009)
Transfiguraties, seminar at Strijp-S, Eindhoven (2009)
Fin de Saison, screening at Netwerk, Aalst (2009)
Flux/s International Arts Festival, group exhibition at Strijp-S, Eindhoven (2009)
Weak Signals, Wild Cards, screening, de Appel Curatorial Program, Amsterdam (2009)
On Value, screening curated by Nav Haq, Miart-Art Fair, Milan (2009)
Art Brussels, presentation at Koraalberg Gallery (2009)
The Good Life, solo exhibition at Arnolfini, Center of Contemporary Art, Bristol (2009)