GHOST COLLECTION
October 25 - 1 December, 2019
GHOST COLLECTION is the fifth and final chapter of Whose Museum’s year-long exhibition at KRETS, and for this occasion we have invited Vancouver-based artist Patrick Cruz for a residency in Malmö. Our exhibition has evolved thanks to numerous guest artists, collaborations and new contributions to the collection from the public – and now Cruz, a long-time member of Whose Museum, has come to wrap things up. While being here, he has worked with the museum as a medium to make a series of new and site-specific works.
In the installation MUSEUM OF REST, Cruz has reorganized the collection, exhibition ephemera and diner interior of Whose Museum. Objects have been emptied from their stores, bubble wrapped, and placed on a stage where they perform their rest. In this new staging, visitors are invited to face the material presence at the center of the space. The concentric rearrangement of the exhibition gives us a chance to encounter Whose Museum as a visual culture, as the artist goes on to show with the drawing installation FLASH MUSEUM, which envelops the viewer from floor to ceiling. Recognizable details from the collection become afterimages combined into one large projection drawn in China ink. The black and white sketches are applied directly to the museum interior resembling tattoo flashes. Here a new trail of associations between Whose Museum’s objects and drawings emerges, as a thought-cloud of the phantoms Cruz has seen and experienced while looking through the collection.
Since 2015, Patrick Cruz has shared Filipino meals in Mexico City, Berlin and Guelph as food based events, collaborative sculptures and communal performances. For the series’ fourth presentation Kitchen Codex: Swedipino, he will create a hybrid Swedish-Filipino recipe offered to participants in Malmö in exchange for the community’s favourite recipes and stories. They can be anything from butter on toast to something more elaborate. The performance takes place at Whose Museum on October 25 (5–8 PM), and the Kitchen Codex recipe collection will later be compiled into a cookbook.
ABOUT WHOSE MUSEUM:
Are you curious about something in the museum? This year at KRETS, artist Theresa Kampmeier is running a Remote Support for Whose Museum staff, artists and visitors alike. Her hotline has been buzzing with inquiries, about object provenance, proposals for rituals, and suggestions wanting to trade for pins on Dr. Storey’s coat. Support requests can be made by filling out a simple form at Whose Museum, and replies come within the week. As Whose Museum has moved around over the years, different people have become involved forming a loose collective of associates, including Kampmeier. At one point a Gothenburg chapter met in matching outfits. Associates have presented the collection at concerts, sushi restaurants, and schools; at a science fair, in a Ferris wheel, and at Art Basel. They even staged a search for a missing collection. Many new people have become involved this year and it has been a pleasure to connect with local communities. Soon, Whose Museum turns twelve. The ball keeps rolling.
Supported by the Culture Department of Malmö, the Swedish Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts
Photos: Lena Bergendahl
