Standortfaktor

"Ride in Blue" is a project realized by the artist Chema Alvargonzalez for the exhibition STANDORTFAKTOR.  The framework of the exhibition was a tour bus for which each of the participating artists designed a project relating to the metropolis of Berlin.

The journeys of the "Blue Bus" through the city began each day at sundown and used the glass pavilion next to the Volksbühne theatre on Rosa-Luxemburg Platz as its point of departure.  The bus was illuminated with a blue neon light during its various travels and was continually photographed, contrasting various urban spaces.

Journeys took place between the periphery and the center of the city, visiting tourist sites claimed by the city as its identity, travelling through anonymous spaces where the urban landscape repeats itself and becomes universal.

The bus as a sculptural element that moves in the nocturnal urban landscape.
The bus as a reference to the child that plays with small toy buses in the various imaginary places of the city.
The blue bus as an object.
The blue bus as a mobile sculpture.
The blue bus as a performative space directed by the conductor.
The blue bus, unified with the idea of mobile sculptures = the city as a space of exhibition.
The movements between the periphery and the center.
The bus as a space of experimentation with urban space for the eyes of tourists.
The game of imaginary spaces (Boris Vian, Autumn in Peking).
The blue interior, the exterior reality.
Travelling between interior and exterior.

Chema Alvargonzalez - Berlín, April 1998