All power to the factory outlets – "Burberry" Propaganda Tour in Latvia

July 23, 2013
Author Echo Gone Wrong

Merlin Carpenter arrived in Riga on July 16th, unloaded, and set up the fake Burberry cloth canvases inside the exhibition hall of kim? for a presentation lasting one night only. On July 17th the tour van moved on to Jurmala for a presentation of the fake Burberry cloth canvas, set up and adapted to the interrior of the Water Rescue Station Majori.

In 2010, British artist Merlin Carpenter exhibited thirty-seven pictures at the Miami gallery Formalist Sidewalk Poetry Club. Each was a piece of fake Burberry check textile stretched on a large wooden frame. Shipped in a container to Tallinn in May 2013, they remained on show at Temnikova & Kasela gallery through June.

When the show ends in Tallinn, the artist returns to Estonia to pack up these works in a van and take them on a tour around Eastern Europe. Carpenter restages the mission undertaken by Leon Trotsky during the Russian Civil War. Trotsky’s armoured Propaganda Train travelled to the many fronts on which the Red Army fought the Whites and was equipped with artillery, telegraph, printing press, and elite fighters.

Equipped with only luxury branded artworks and a smile, the Propaganda Van will move through the former Soviet Block from Tartu, Vana-Kasepää, Hiiumaa and Narva in Estonia; Riga and Jurmala in Latvia; further to Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia; Vilnius, Lithuania; Warsaw, Poland; ending up in Berlin, former GDR. With quick stop-offs organised in these and other locations—whether a topnotch institution or forest glade—the tour will proceed from place to place promoting the Burberry paintings to local inhabitants.

Merlin Carpenter drove an empty van from London to Porto last year as an art piece. His recent solo shows include “POLICE” at Dépendance, Brussels (2013); “funky house” at Limazulu, London (2012); “TATE CAFÉ” at Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York (2012), and Simon Lee Gallery, London (2011). „Heroes“ at MD72, Berlin (2011); and a show at Overduin and Kite, Los Angeles (2011).

The tour will continue to:

23.7 – Kablys, Vilnius, Lithuania

24.7 – Galeria Leto, Warsaw, Poland

25.7 – East Side Gallery, the Berlin Wall, Berlin, East Germany

For further information see the official Burberry Propaganda Tour 2013 blog.

 

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Photographs by Ansis Starks