A NIGHT AT BEST BUY, October 2009
Interview with Borna Sammak and Tom McDonell ahead of Borna's solo exhibition, Best Buy
Intro and Request by Keehnan Kohnya
Edited for publication by Alex Gartenfeld
Published on ART IN AMERICA.COM, 10.06.2009 (view edited version >> )
Still from one of Borna Sammak's videos
Rocketboom video coverage
Heckling Borna as he gets interviewed for RocketBoom
AFC coverage by Karen Archey
Background: Keehnan Kohnya posted a tweet asking for help interviewing Borna about his upcoming show.
Being critically inquisitive about what Borna was doing, I agreed to think of the questions. I didn't know it was for Artinamerica.com and didn't have any kind of editing limits in mind. The final post on that platform was naturally very condensed and I thought it would be great to eventually put up the raw email text. I've posted it here on my site a year or so after the original publication.
My main objective with the questions was to give Borna and Tom a chance to explain, explore, and defend their idea for the show before having seen it. This is literally the first conversation I've ever had with Borna about his work. I didn't know Borna very well before this interview outside of general awareness of his art and online profiles.
My interest in this show idea also stemmed from a similar desire to have my own solo show at a more high-end shop called Stereo Exchange right down the street from Borna and Tom's Best Buy, one that focuses on full room equipment installations that feature themed decorations of cultural objects. This was a desire I'd had for about 6 months prior to Borna's announcement, so of course I was envious, excited, and curious to see how much he would be exploiting the concept of a Best Buy show, or treating it like more of an informal gesture.
Similar group shows have taken place:
Rumored show at a Mediamarkt in Berlin in 2008?
PROSUME THIS! at Beko in Berlin, 2011
Here is the original email thread, which can be viewed as additional reading to the published version.
