GOMO
And then, the world wakes up, it begins to pay attention to itself. It walks down a city street and notices the grey tiles, the cigarette butts, the dog shit and the pavement weeds. There’s glass between that shiny floor of it, it is complicit with law and order. It breaks no windows. The girl next to me is fidgeting with a Kleenex: She is wearing big headphones, I forgot mine in the locker outside the library. I’m typing on the keyboard, her hands are occupied with the tissue paper. She utilises that Kleenex to wipe off dust and dirt from her MacBook charger. It makes a subtle, but very dry, screeching sound. I look at her and look at her and then she looks back at me. ——-
Portals is an exhibition concept initiated by Salon 75 in Copenhagen Denmark, ranging across Europe and cross-pollinating several similar platforms. From the summer of 2022 until the fall of 2023, Salon 75 has facilitated collaborations with artist-run galleries: Berlinskej Model (Prague), GOMO (Vienna), The Balcony (Haag), and Heit (Berlin). Each venue partakes in presentations across each others respective platforms.
At GOMO—an artist run space founded in the summer of 2017 —a variety of highly divergent art positions converge. GOMO invites artists, collectives, and young curators to launch projects that encourage collaboration in the realization of interdisciplinary exhibitions. The space at Volkertplatz 8 is conceived as a dynamic and socially interactive space open to just such a cooperative spirit. The diversity it offers is directly embraced by the founders and is reflected in a broad-ranging program, attracting a lively and interested audience. What is important to the founders is that they do not indulge primarily in a curatorial role, but that they work together with the invited artists, either in helping to shape the exhibition or simply by giving them carte blanche.