Ives Maes

Resin, hemp, pigment, paper

220 bottles of 9 x 6 x 24 cm, 7 barrels of 87 x 58 cm, 1 roof of 60 x 122 x 190 cm

Unique

2007

Content

In the seventies, brewer Alfred Heineken from Amsterdam had a marvelous idea to make the world a better place. He invented a small house that would be dispersed throughout the world and thus giving everyone a roof over their heads. He commissioned architect John Habraken who designed a flat Heineken beer bottle that looked almost like a brick. The neck of the bottle would fit into the bottom of the next bottle and so you could build walls of Heineken bottles. He named it WoBo, or World Bottle. Shell would provide empty oil barrels that could be used as pillars on the corner of each wall. Volkswagen would deliver the roofs of Volkswagen beetles that could be placed on top of the construction. And that was the homeless shelter. Of course, before you could build your house, you had to drink a whole lot of Heineken. By the time that some people got drunk enough to surround themselves with walls, Volkswagen and Shell had already left the deal and the idea was never realized. Ives Maes made a biodegradable reconstruction of this masterpiece. Heinekens idea was basically an ideal way for waste disposal. He made an attempt, naming it ethical engagement, to export empty oil barrels, rusty car parts and shattered glass. This was still the pre-recycling era! A biodegradable replica would literally resolve these problems.

PROJECT

With his RECYCLABLE REFUGEE CAMP project, Ives Maes probed the derailment of contemporary hyper-ethics. His latrines, wells, shelters and coffins, fabricated in a natural resin, raise ethics to a manic state. The Recyclable Refugee Camp tackles the ethical imperative that encourages art to intervene in the world, localizing the epicenter of a new utopia inside the boundaries of the art world itself.

Excerpt from the text ‘An economy of truth’ by Wim Peeters, published in Flash Art nr. 235, 2004

EXHIBITION

Kunst & Zwalm

Multiple locations, Zwalm, Belgium

26/08/07 - 09/09/07

Elodie Antoine, Marc Berlanger, Karel Breugelmans, Stijn Cole, Ralph Cüpper, Wim Cuyvers, Yvan Derweduwe, Noel Drieghe, Willi Filz, Eddy Francois, HAP, Ives Maes, Karine Marenne, Gauthier Pierson, Ante Timmermans, Herman Van Ingelgem, Thierry Zeno