Green Go Home For The Home

a black and white photo of a young beautiful white eva hesse in a black turtleneck, arms upstretched against two pieces of a sculpture and draped in cellophane, a diaphanous archival image screenprinted in black on a 2-page spread of the ny times from 2015, by tomas vu, with a catchphrase from rirkrit tiravanija, up against the wall mother fuckers, printed over it in silver ink, being sold at rago arts in new jersey in sept 2025
Rirkrit Tiravanija and Tomas Vu, Untitled Green Go Home with Eva Hesse, 2015, 22 x 24 in., screenprint on newspaper, selling at Rago Arts on 30 Sept 2025

Green Go Home is an ongoing collaborative exploration by Rirkrit Tiravanija and Tomas Vu of the origins of the phrase, “Gringo go home!” and all that it implicates. It seems to have started in 2013 as a screenprint collaboration between the two Columbia professors and their students to combine “portraits derived from Google searches with text supplied by Rirkrit on top.”

The presence of each character—from films to music to personalities of resistance—reveals itself to the viewer as addressing the condition of the graffiti text. The figures included vary from country to country, though some figures reappear, as they are, to me, at the crux of this discussion – Ted Kazynski, Alan Turing, Barbarella, Ana Mendieta. The grid holds up the statement and reinforces the layers of interpretation, readings, and misunderstandings. “Green Go Home” is meant to be a wall of resisters, and of resistance.

the wall of a madrid gallery in 2015 covered by a wallpaper of black on white photos of the heads of famous people and artists, including the unabomber and julian assange, and whoever, with prints on newspapers, framed in white, hung on top of it. each newsprint has a different famous person's head, including johnny cash, marcel duchamp, etc., plus a pithy saying of rebellion by rirkrit tiravanija. via nf galeria
Green Go Home, installation view, 2015, NF Galeria

It has been staged at least twelve times between 2013 and 2022, in formats including wheatpaste posters, made-on-the-spot t-shirts (free and for sale), murals, a plexi and aluminum pavilion, and on framed sheets of newsprint. There is also an ur-artwork, a 30×22 inch, 78-image, screenprinted portfolio in a mirror-finish steel box, in an edition of eight, that does not immediately correlate to anything that’s ever been shown publicly.

a head shot of alan turing silscreened in black ink over a spread from a 2015 spanish newspaper, with the phrase, los dias de esta sociedad son limitados, silkscreened in silver over that, a collaborative print by rirkrit tiravanija and tomas vu, floated in a white frame from its exhibition in madrid, being sold in new jersey at rago arts in sept 2025
Rirkrit Tiravanija and Tomas Vu, Green Go Home with Alan Turing, 2015, 14 3/8 x 22 3/8 in., screenprint on newspaper, selling at Raga Arts on 30 Sept 2025

All of this is to say, four unique prints on newsprint from the 2015 incarnation of Green Go Home at Nieves Fernández in Madrid have appeared at auction in the New York metropolitan area. The first, at Doyle in 2019, let’s say it might still be available. And three more just turned up at Rago Arts in New Jersey. Technically, only two have a Madrid provenance—and Spanish frames. The unframed work up top, with the English phrase, UP AGAINST THE WALL MOTHER FUCKERS, printed on top of Eva Hesse doing her best Fifth of May, just has exquisite Madrid vibes, while resembling the prints shown in Berlin in 2020.

Besides, could anything feel more of the moment than the queer father of artificial intelligence, killed by the state, saying, LOS DÍAS DE ESTA SOCIEDAD SON LIMITADOS? Collect them all for your wall of resistance!