bravo
bravo leaves the conventional framework of an exhibition and opens up to forms of staging that are more familiar from entertainment television. It centres on the question of what artistic potential can arise when established modes of presentation give way to rehearsal and delay, and expectation and projection gradually take shape. This is Garçon's first institutional presentation outside the UK.
The project draws on US reality television as a cultural and formal frame of reference. Garçon is interested in the specific staging logics of these formats, in the movement between stage and supposedly "real" space and in the episodic structure with which such programmes organise time, attention and dramaturgy. Questions of visibility, narration and revelation (of information) pervade Garçon's practice. In bravo, they appear as a spatial choreography that treats the exhibition space as a set that is additionally activated during the opening. The evening resembles a kind of "watch party" and places visitors in a shared state of waiting, listening, watching and being watched.
In addition to a performance by Garçon, the opening includes sound and video contributions by the artist Paride Maria Calvia and the experimental pianist Precious Renee Tucker. Calvia's pre-conceived mix will soundtrack the evening. Tucker's contribution takes the form of a specially produced composition and video recording, which mobilises the short video format that made her go viral on social media and integrates it into the visual and acoustic order of the evening. During the five-week duration of the project, performative interventions will take place twice a week. Garçon has cast an employee of the Kunstverein for this and thus subtly brings internal institutional processes onto the stage. The costume, developed by stylist Taylor Thoroski, is based on the looks of women who take centre stage in reality TV formats.
To conclude bravo, a dialogue-based guided tour of the installation with Solomon Garçon and Gloria Hasnay, Director of the Kunstverein, will take place on Saturday, 14 March 2026, at 4 pm. (Source: Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen)
Exhibition duration: 7 February to 15 March 2026