K.Ö.N.I.G./K.Ö.N.I.G Dienst am Kunden - Nr. 5

On a folding map of Bremen, as also available in the sales outlets of the tourist office, this new city map lists all the pubs in Bremen that have a city name - from "Athens" to "Hasenbürener Krug" and "Münchener Grillstube" to "Zagreb".
The photographic details (the logos of the pubs) were collected by the artists in April this year.

This work by Hinrich Sachs and Asien Pérez Gonzáles plays with the border between "art" and "non-art". Their plan circulates in public space in a manner confusingly similar to standard commercial products. Its mimicry structure is revealed at second glance, when irritation sets in.
It is thus located in an area of art that is not concerned with arguing with aesthetic categories, but rather with establishing relationships between social fields and pointing out their structures.

The STADTPLAN - INTERNATIONALE LOKALE oscillates between different levels.
As a usable source of information, it is a functional object and as such threads itself into the cycle of consumption.
It creates a certain image of Bremen "between local charm and international flair" and thus refers to a marketing strategy that every city uses to show a stylised image of itself, to present itself as a product. (The fact that this plan will nevertheless not be distributed by the Bremer Touristik Zentrale reveals another problem - that of economic interests).
Another level is that of reading and the associations associated with it. City names, especially foreign ones, contain a "promise": the experience of the other, the foreign, the exciting life. Thus, this "city image" awakens longings, fed by memory and wanderlust. The view of one's own city changes, the familiar image becomes foreign, superimposed by the "elsewhere".
Logo culture picks up on this element of longing and uses it to keep the consumer cycle going: here, too, the foreign is already available, easily and more cheaply.
(In this context, it is interesting to compare the styles of designer logos and the far greater number of logos specified by the large breweries).

As a guide to gastronomy, the plan only functions to a limited extent, and this is not its primary intention. It does, however, draw attention to the various interest groups of foreign suppliers and their social function and thus touches on the problem of globalisation on the one hand/xenophobia on the other.

Hinrich Sachs and Asia Pérez Gonzáles will not only present the STADTPLAN - INTERNATIONALE LOKALE to you, but also report on the interesting experiences they had in the run-up to the realisation of their project.