Our love for, our desire to party with, the merry-prankster-in-chief of Atelier van Lieshout is no secret. Well, fans of the awesome, bump it up a notch. Way up. Opening today in Yokohama, AVL presents...Bar Rectum! Per the release:

For the triennial of Yokohama, which opens on September 28, 2005, AVL created the Bar Rectum that can also be translated as: Asshole Bar, Arsch Bar, Bar Anus, Bar Culo, Bar Ano, Rumpa Bar. This object is an organically shaped large Rectum and as you will understand, it is a human digestion system of which the last part is inflated to humongous dimensions. The bar is 16 meters long and 4 metres wide and it can be accessed trough the rectum. It functions as a real service point for drinks and snacks. Inside the bar there is a possibility for the visitor to lounge. Everyone will experience this typical AVL object as relaxing and feels welcome while visiting the bar.

If Yokohama is too far afield—our tickets are booked—consider a stroll through AVL's "Happy Forest" exhibit at the usually staid Krœller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, NL:

Happy Forest, an outdoor exhibition that shows an overview of AVL's work of the last 10 years. Before you enter the area where the exhibition takes place, you see three sculptures which are called Bad Man. At first sight these, works blend very well with the many traditional sculptures of the park, but when you come closer you discover that these 'streamline' figures brutally mistreat each other. After the public is lured into the area, which is a little bit off main path, they arrive at the sculpture field with many of the colourful and easy digestible mobile homes and living-units. When you walk further you arrive in the sculpture forest which is more dark and gloomy with cut-out enlarged human organs, machines, generators, large tanks, torture equipment and a terrorist's settlement. This exhibition is on one hand inviting and comprehensible for the general public and many day tourists, but on the other hand it is a strange collection of objects that it leaves many question marks and uneasy feelings behind.

Question marks. Uneasy feelings. Joep, next round's on us.

· New Work [AVL]

Posted in Simply Sublime