The Salon Adesso in Genoa and Copenhagen, 1997-98

In the autumn of ’96 I accepted a studio scholarship in Genoa from the city of Zurich, which I won with the help of Ingo Giezendanner for a loveless slipshod mural in Helmhaus. My natural predisposition for the Mediterranean way of life in a medieval city full of empty buildings made me wonder how I could live after the scholarship ran out. I promised the youth hostel a mural, which I skillfully dragged out for as long as possible in order to stay there for free. I was finally given the boot after a kerosene stove exploded in my room during a house party. For the next six months I lodged in an anarchist library, which was nestled in a virtually unused Renaissance palace.

Eventually I managed to bribe an official of the Italian State Railways with a Märklin model locomotive and became a proud resident of the ramshackle railway viaduct arch, costing me 75 francs per month. Here I finally opened the Adesso salon together with Aenne Bennike, who invited her gang of fellow Danish artists and musicians to hold group exhibitions, concerts and happenings. The events were, however, poorly attended. The Italians thought the salon was either an antique shop or a brothel. It didn’t take long before we had trouble with the vice squad and then with the anti-sectarian police unit.Rumors of dirt-cheap groundfloor commercial spaces in the train station area of Copenhagen lured us to Denmark in spring of ’98. Within a week we found a three-room shop with large windows in the Valdemarsgade, where we were able to reopen the salon Adesso. We lived in a pantry without any residence agreement and annexed the basement for illegal parties. This time artists, mostly from Zurich, were invited to partake in the Gesamtkunstwerk installations we were erecting in the storefront’s rooms. Here originated, among other things, the walk-in automatic shadow theater operated by a handcrafted interface made of washing-machine cam switches. In fall of ’98 our xenophobic neighbors and the fact that I was the only one from the 4-person collective who hadn’t killed himself or ended up in a mental hospitalforced me to tie a ribbon on the Copenhagen experiment and return to Zurich. 

The Salon Adesso in Genoa 1997 Participant artists

Anne Bennike (DK), Aether(DK), Gry (DK), Zaki (DK), Jakob Kirkegaard (DK), Davide Barabino (IT), Guido Vanderbildt (NL), Ingo Giezendanner (CH), Mark Divo (CH), Stine Otto Brinklov (DK), The King Anabels (D) 

PERIOD
10.4.1997-10.12.1997

LOCATION
Via Burranelo 115, Genova-Sampierdarena

BUILDING TYPE
Railway viaduct arch

SIZE
100 m²

PROMOTION
None

INFRASTRUCTURE
Exhibition space, inhabited sculpture

EVENTS
Concerts, performances
Free services: Workshops

CONCEPT AND ORGANISATION
Mark Divo, Guido Vanderbildt, Davide Barrabino

The Salon Adesso in Copenhagen 1998
Participant artists:

F.M. Einheit (DE), Flemming Jensen (DK) Iben Hansen (DK), Susan Walder (CH),Flemmng Brusgaard (DK), Kerim Seiler (CH), Anne Bennike (DK), Aether(DK), Gry (DK), Zaki (DK), Jakob Kirkegaard (DK), Ingo Giezendanner (CH), Mark Divo (CH), Stine Otto Brinklov (DK), The The King Anbels (D)

Period:
15.3.1998-15.10.1998

Opening hours:
weekly Thursdays

Location:
Valdemarsgade 52 A Kopepenhaven-Vesterbro

Building type:
Shop with apartment

Size:
approx 90m2

Support:
statens Kulturfonds,Denmark

Infrastructure:
exhibition room, concert stage in the basement, bar, inhabited sculpture

Events:
Concerts, Performances

Services:
Workshops, Nude drawing circle

Organization, concept:
Mark Divo, Anne Bennike

Curatorium Exhibition:
Mark Divo, Anne Bennike

Technology:
Fleming Brusgaard

Documentation:
Flemming Brusgaard

Flyers: