While Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard and Babak Radboy were making fake fashion mag The Casual Pleasure of Disappointment (read an interview with Radboy about it here), somewhere along the way Jim Henson Studios stepped in to make a Melgaard Muppet. Numerous films were made of it travelling around New York, monosyllabically talking on the phone about his internet provider, holding his phone and masturbating, sending a million “hellos” to guys that take forever to respond and behaving erratically in a shoe shop, in a series of films named ‘Call With Artist’s....Manager/Gallerist/Internet Provider’. You haven’t seen many Muppets like this.
“The muppet is a marketing object: one in a abyss of likenesses which compose the Melgaard brand: a project including several streetwear collections, videos, ad campaigns, sculptures a magazine and much too-much more,” says Radboy. “All held together by a certain spirit, a noticeable absence of Bjarne’s hand — and at times even his most basic input.
“Ok,
Sure,
That sounds Great,
Ciao.”
Nothing out of the ordinary. The greater the detachment from a work — the more purely is it an act of appropriation by the artist. But wouldn’t it be darker if the opposite were true?”
Watch all three below. Melgaard Magazine is now available, co-published by Red Bull Arts New York. Click here to buy it
