Salim Bayri – Smartshop kaaskoes

Smartshops can be found all over Amsterdam, but the type Salim Bayri makes serve as personal archives. Drawing 3D models, the artist “takes notes” of his surroundings, such as a sculpture he saw in a museum, a pile of bones, cleaning products and a plate of food he ate in Istanbul.

The objects come in and out of this library in a constant process of change. As Bayri makes, destroys, loses or discards objects, the smartshop gets frozen in punctual moments as prints or videos. These hang silently or are accompanied by the artist singing in front of them.

For his presentation at TodaysArt, Bayri emphasizes different types of virtualities: computer generated images, augmented reality and also his faraway grandma. “I saw this couscous kit in the supermarket. It feels amazing to be able to make a student version of a majestic couscous for cheap. On the other side, I wonder what my grandma would think about it… Will it fit with her experience with the dish? As the artist Grayson Perry said: democracy has bad taste.”

In ‘Smartshop kaaskoes’, Bayri mixes different distances and degrees of virtuality while, at the end of the day, there is nothing to eat.