Freitag ad absurdum

28.10.2015 → 28.02.2016
Carte blanche to the Freitag brothers feat. Frank & Patrik Riklin

Having been given carte blanche by mudac, Markus and Daniel Freitag have joined forces with concep­tual artists Frank & Patrik Riklin, known for their offbeat prac­tice outside of ordin­ary artistic circles. The four broth­ers share a mind­set and similar funda­mental prin­ciples under­lie their work: actions centred on resources, the enjoy­ment of social inter­ac­tion, and a cyclical way of think­ing and acting. Their project is not confined to the museum and largely takes place in public space. The Freitag and Riklin broth­ers set off in early summer to meet users of FREITAG bags, which are made from used truck tarpaul­ins. They invited them to take part in an action which pushes the manu­fac­tur­ing process for their products to the edge of absurdity: to give up their bags and let them return to being a lorry tarp. The four broth­ers took up banners and headed for loca­tions includ­ing Zurich station and the cathed­ral square outside mudac, where they succeeded in convin­cing
complete strangers to hand over their bags. All the FREITAG stores joined in with the campaign and asked custom­ers to bring back their shabby totes. In this way, a hundred or so bags were garnered from around the world.

In the Zurich fact­ory where every FREITAG bag is cut, the four broth­ers unpicked the bags they had gathered in, pieced and soldered them together. The lorry tarp was trans­formed… into a lorry tarp, push­ing the FREITAG upcyc­ling prin­ciple ad absurdum. The new multi­col­oured patch­work tarpaulin was moun­ted on a truck and the Freitag and Riklin broth­ers set off in August on a road trip around Switzer­land, and engaged in dialogue with people in every region.
The four broth­ers were not afraid to invite them­selves into strangers’ homes if it would get a conver­sa­tion star­ted, and they were confron­ted by reac­tions to their mani­festo on consump­tion and produc­tion in the 21st century. They put their convic­tions to the test, and meas­ured their abil­ity to change reac­tions and atti­tudes. They coun­ted it a success when they were able to sleep in a total stranger’s garden, spon­tan­eously get people to make soup from the leftovers found on the vari­ous floors of an apart­ment build­ing, or plant a plac­ard ques­tion­ing the fidel­ity of lawn­mowers…

These exper­i­ences and encoun­ters gave birth to objects that are both surpris­ing and original, made, in turn, from the re-re-recycled lorry tarp: these include a free-rider seat, a shop­ping bag pros­thesis and even a compost cata­pult. In Septem­ber, the four broth­ers went to test these objects on the people of Lausanne. Could unfa­mil­iar objects shake up famil­iar habits? Could unex­pec­ted encoun­ters create new consumer beha­viours? This ironic take on recyc­ling, exten­ded to infin­ity, frees up the very seri­ous posi­tion on consump­tion and our contem­por­ary use of resources taken by the Freitag and Riklin broth­ers.
Every stage in this adven­ture will be retraced in the exhib­i­tion, which will enable visit­ors to join in and play an active part by borrow­ing objects which were them­selves created as part of this extreme recyc­ling project, with its stated aim of alter­ing consumer beha­viour.

Vue de l'exposition Freitag ad absurdum
Vue de l'exposition Freitag ad absurdum
Vue de l'exposition Freitag ad absurdum