Le Regard, Tapko-The Place, 1992

Opening :
Friday, April 24, 6 PM – 9 PM

Opening hours : 
From April 23 to 26, then on Fridays and Saturdays, 2 PM – 6 PM

Overview
“(Sarkis) was able to unite the whole room in one grasp with great virtuosity, playing skillfully with spatial points of balance, colours, sounds, and signs. He had covered a quarter of the floor with red bricks and put old newspapers on between instead of cement. On the platform he placed an old typewriter-desk and a chair, which were “looking” at the remote corner of the room, seen from the door of entrance. In this corner was an upright bottom of a bed with the number of “19380” written in pulsating, orange neon. Next to this was a steel sink, provided with dripping water by a pipe line, which was hanging across the room one and half meter above the floor, starting from a tap at the door entrance. (…) Sarkis himself had been sitting at the table, facing the timeless object, his feet solidly planted on the base of stored information, suspended between points of balance, indications of limits, basic and geometrical forms, meditating on his year of birth, which was, “thrown ahead” (objacet – object) making a series of watercolour paintings, which were thrown on the table or “thrown behind”, stuck on the back of the chair. Each of them showed a small house, like a pictogram, painted in orange watercolour. A remarkable image of how for a moment the subject has succeeded in creating himself a place a home right here, by means of attention, balance and concentration. A provisional orange locality, bursting into flames in the middle of an endless colour of blue.(…)* While the ealier art of installation emphasized the objects and the localities to make them survive, the project of Tapko made it clear that now the task is rather one of reviving, however provisional” 

Extract from Lars Grambye, The Temporary Topographies in Tapko – The Magazine N°1, 1993, published by Tapko, Soborg, Denmark.


Title
Tapko, The Place names the site. A less grandiose term replaces it: the title of the installation, The Gaze. A gaze cast upon the watercolors left on site, scattered across the worktable, stuck to the chair, as well as the watercolor cup, the brush, the worktable and its chair turned toward the neon numbers hanging on the metal frame of a bed base set against the wall. A gaze cast upon the disorder of the world: the newspapers placed between the bricks added to the floor bear witness to it. The gaze of the watercolors, all illustrating the same subject: the house is burning. The gaze of the viewer directed at the neon inscription of the artist’s birth date with an added zero. A gaze pushed far away by the effect of this gigantic number, placing micro-history within expanded history—macro-history. And finally, the gaze of the artist in his absence: he has deserted the place, leaving behind chair, worktable, and other objects. Objects that are anything but inert. For Lars Grambye, the commentator of the exhibition in the preceding quote, these are objects projected into and out of the installation: “objacets”! As for the visitors, they cast their gaze upon the scene as if observing and deciphering an old-style painting. They have always been chasing the artist. What is at stake here?


The Place  
Tapko The Place, Copenhagen North Harbor, deserves the designation of an imaginary place according to the descriptions of Alberto Manguel in his Dictionary of Imaginary Places. It matters little that these fictional places are literary. In his introduction, he writes: “We take this opportunity to ask our readers to inform us of any worthy places that may have escaped our attention. With their help, we hope to prepare a future edition—fictional, of course!—revised to include omissions from the past and newcomers from the future…” We are indeed dealing with an omission of the past: Tapko The Place had a short life, from April to November 1992. Sarkis was its last occupant.


3 Dates 
19380, inscribed in red neon on the metal frame of a bed base leaning against the wall—the number 19380. Expansion, projection of a life into the future through the sole effect of luminous radiation and the inflation of its breath. Sarkis, in an interview with Marie Laure Desjardins in 2019: “19380, my year of birth followed by a zero. A way of letting the wind carry me into the future.”   
1992: the date of the installation of the work. But also that of the Bosnian War of Independence, the final dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia, which produced nearly 2,000,000 refugees; the same year: the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan, 20,000 displaced.  
2026: the date of the activation of the work at Garage Cosmos. But also that of the battles in Ukraine (10,000,000 displaced), southern Lebanon (1,000,000 displaced), Gaza (1,900,000 internally displaced). Why does Sarkis multiply his watercolors, all roughly similar? Because everywhere, still and always, the house burns in the same way. In 2026 as in 1992. Even more so?

Le regard in April 2026 at Garage Cosmos 
 Sarkis still seeks to bear witness. He will activate the installation at Garage Cosmos. Leaning against the same chair, resting on the same table as in 1992, he once again takes the path of his fire watercolors, while the news from daily papers murmurs, emerging from the bricks of the floor—renewed rumors of the world’s disorder. 
 Tapko The Magazine, Lars Grambye: “The Place was resurrected but just for a moment”. And : “The Place only reappeared when the last installation entitled “The Look” (“Le Regard” ) was created by Sarkis…” . Again: “While the earlier art of installation emphasized the objects and the localities to make them survive, the project of Tapko made it clear that now the task is rather one of reviving, however provisional” One may wager that what applied to the place, brought out of its torpor by artists, also applies to the work itself—Le regard, reactivated in April 2026.