Mon Chalet [My Chalet]
1987
Installation, 310 x 310 x 230 cm.
Materials: mixed media
Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. BK6054_M114).
Mon Chalet is the first work that Guillaume Bijl realized in the series 'Situation-Installations' intended for the open air. It is a pre-fab chalet with typical furnishings. Guillaume Bijl calls his 'Situation-Installations' ‘a non-reality within a reality’. These are small, image-disturbing interventions in the everyday environment – or, in the present case, in the museum space. With the installation Mon Chalet, Bijl creates a new reality which vis-à-vis true reality comes over as absurdist and surreal. He makes it clear that art resides in a domain that falls between reality and fiction and, by definition, contains an estranging dimension.