SALIM BAYRI, Let the blue in, 2018
64, 5 x 37 cm
screen print, blue frame + link to AR app for Android
signed, dated, numbered
edition 8
€ 500,- plus € 32,- Track & Trace EU registered mail

When an AR app belonging to this work is held in front of the framed screen print another image appears, though similar in atmosphere. Salim Bayri tells the following about this print:

LET THE BLUE IN (REJECTED), print on paper and AR app, 2018.

I applied to an open call by Spaces. (A company that offers coworking spaces around the world). They wanted to celebrate their 10th anniversary picking 10 existing works by 10 artists to make 10 editions of each that will go to 10 different coworking spaces. It was called ‘Power of 10’.

At that time, I visited the kitchen at ‘Ons Lieve Heer op Solder’ one of the remaining secret churches from the 17th century. I was intrigued by the blue tiles and started to wonder why they were blue.

Blue like the famous deep blue from Essaouira and Touareg garments. Could that be from there?

I made an image out of the figures found in the tiles, mostly about children’s games and made it look as if I really printed and framed it thanks to 3D computer simulations.

They liked it and I was asked to produce 10 copies of the image.

Every morning in my squat house in Van Schendelstraat in Groningen I would look at the image and change little details. I couldn’t leave it like it was after a night of sleep seeing little children playing the ball in my head.

By the time I sent the image to the printers, it was quite different, although I thought it was still in the same spirit.

The day they received it and hung it; I received a call from the organisers surprised by the modified image. “It’s not what we saw and It’s too late to reprint it, the opening is today!”

Urgently, I go see Kees van Gelder to seek some comfort. An hour before the opening we have the idea of using some tech magic with an AR app I made before. When the camera is pointed to the new rejected print, the first approved one shows up instead. I thought they would find it funny enough to accept the new image. But something approved apparently should stay like it is, and I had to reprint and replace everything as it was agreed in the first place.

But well, at least there’s a side of the story where the rejected and approved, old and new, altered and original are together. You have it.

SB