The bear in the foreground is “Ours” (2014), a model of a bear by Abraham Poincheval. We see the side of the bear that is intact. On the other side there is an opening that will fit a human being. In fact, it did fit a human being for several days in 2014: the artist himself resided in the artwork supplied with a kettle, ten books and a bin. Eating a diet based on that of bears and practicing a hibernation-style meditation.
On the right you see “Praha – Den Haag” (1989) by Guillermo Kuitca, consisting of 3 painted mattrasses. Three different maps are painted on them in different shades, stretching a Western European area from The Hague to Prague. The oddly placed buttons are major cities. The shapes, stains and bumps in the mattresses become part of the landscape in the maps. The notion af a bed, a mattress, something so personal being combined with something as public and openly shared as a road map is a beautiful contradiction, illustrating the human being.
