YOUR PORTRAIT (ALL IN) NOW 200 FR.ONLY

Happening/installation at opening of museum exhibition in Aalst, Belgium,
April 1990.

The occasion was a respectable exhibition of “high” art and the guests at the opening celebration were selected accordingly. Thorvaldur was invited to stage a happening at the opening and opted to present “low” art - pavement art - to explore its impact in this context. The happening involved offering to draw portraits of the exhibition guests at very favourable prices (tears included). In terms of his own appearance and the sample of work that he displayed, the artist was a prefect replica of the typical pavement artist. The result was a firmly cold reception from the respectable guests at the exhibition-apart from two girls from the countryside who gladly took advantage of the pavement artists services. After two hours, beneath the humiliating glare of the art-lovers who felt the presence of a pavement artist was to say the least improper, word began to spread that this was a “real” artist staging a happening. Everything changed from that point onwards and by the end of the exhibition Thorvaldur had won himself well-wishers and admirers among these same art-lovers who had suddenly realized that this low trash was actually high trash after all.

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