Arne Quinze has a posse. The Belgian self-marketer began his cross-country promotional tour for the launch of the new Lexus flagship at Burning Man. Though he didn’t really mention the tie-in to anyone there at the time, he sure has mentioned the Burn since, and how 2-4,000 people a day would come out to the deep playa to visit the Belgian Waffle.
Oddly, there was no mention at all of Lexus again when Quinze and his firm’s US “agent” Antoine Debouverie, spoke last month at Miami Basel to a breathless David Weinstein on WPS1. The Lexus circus had come to town during the fair, and a P.S.1 staffer named Zorana Djakovic arranged for the “emerging master” to be interviewed about his art on ABMB’s official art radio station.
You can hear the whole interview, it’s only 12 minutes long, but here’s my transcription of part of it:
Zorana Djakovic: What do you think, can you imagine one of Arne’s wooden constructions at the courtyard of P.S.1 during the Warm-Up?
David Weinstein: That’s the Warm-Up architecture project at PS1; there’s a special architecture project for the environment for the summer dance parties. It’s a competition, and there’s a reward, but this would be wonderful there. And beautiful with the old building.
Antoine Debouverie: Have you seen it lit up as well? Because when you put together and create that organic, wooden shape with soft lighting and music, it becomes an incredible communal space.
At Burning Man there were 40,000 people there. We were not advertised anywhere. We were not on the agenda, for what parties at what times, you know? We just did it for ourselves, alright? And every night, I guarantee, there were like five, ten thousand people who would converge to our space to experience the space, the lights, and you know the communion that this piece produces.
DW: I can tell you, our staff was thrilled immediately by this piece, and I urge people to go take a look at it. Our description here leaves something to be desired.
Indeed. And to think the title of my first, naive post about the Uchronians was titled, “Uh-oh, I Hope P.S.1 Doesn’t Find Out About This.”
WPS1: Beyond Burning Man: Arne Quinze [pronounced KWIN-zuh, apparently. Now I’ll have to change all my too-clever titles.]
previous greg.org over-coverage of Quinze Milan, Lexus, Burning Man, and the Uchronians