Yokohama Triennale snippet 03

Reading Momus's comment about Atelier Bow Wow for snippet 02 (read more about it here at imomus) , I was inspired to write about the 'Kokusai Yatai Mura' or 'International Food Stall Village' which occupies a slender flank of the Triennale. Most large-scale international exhibitions are rather exhausting affairs to experience, being big and involving a lot of walking. The ways in which they try to provide rest and sustenance to audiences varies enormously from exhibition to exhibition. This year's Arsenale exhibition at the Venice Biennale offered free mineral water stations to quench thirst. Artists have sometimes provided this service - I remember one artist at the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale (2003) making various kinds of herbal liquors which people could freely taste. Yokohama 2005 has very much incorporated eating and drinking within its exhibition dramaturgy. On one side of the show is a long corridor-like space called the International Food Stall Village. Several mobile food stalls and vans sell hot food, beer and ice creams. Visitors can sit at one of Atelier One's super elongated 'Yatai' stall counters ('White Limousine') and enjoy the sea breeze. Although the food is basic, it was fantastic to be able to drink beer half-way through seeing the exhibition and start the second half in a slightly merry state of mind. I actually thought it worked very well, as the bar is near entertaining works like Navin Rawanchaikul's 'Curatorman Inc.' game and COUMA's ping pong tables.

  Navin playing at being a curator.

'International Food Stall Village'.

Hots Dogs, Beer.....
My advice for Triennale goers would be to begin by spending time sober in the spaces nearer the entrance, where there are works which require some reading and intellectual engagement. Then break for a hot dog and beers at the food stall village and continue slightly tipsy into works nearer the exit - game-type works, video installations and the shop. It should be dusk when you exit and begin the long walk back down the pier towards Yamashita park.
Exhibitions provide audio guides to help viewers engage with the works - I think it would be good if exhibitions also gave advice on how to experience them - perhaps several kinds of 'narratives' - 'the hard-core critical route', 'the scenic route', 'the passage of drunken-ness', or 'the Way of Salvation'.....

Comments

[Momus]

Ah, another great post! There's a particular kind of happiness attached to art cafes (and it's not just the beer!). I think of the temporary one they had in the corner of the Shokuryo Building at Sagacho just before it was demolished, or the one at Stockholm's Moderna Museet... They have a completely different feel from normal cafes, and they're great for checking similarly-minded people out.

I missed the water dispensers when I visited the Arsenale two weeks ago. I also visited Fabrica, the Benetton art college in Treviso, and was shocked to find that it had a few vending machines and no cafe or bar! Fabrica talks of encouraging departments to work together, but if they really meant that they'd make a proper bar-cafe space for people to mingle in!