Here’s an interesting art project from the Netherlands. It’s called How To Explain It To My Parents? It’s a series by artists and directors Lernert & Sander in which five “abstract artists explain to their mom and dad what their work is all about.” In Episode 1 Dutch artist Arno Coenen explains to his father about his latest project: brewing beer.
Coenen is not a commercial brewer, but it’s clear from the video that he’s been home brewing since he was in high school. He contracted two beers from the Brouwerij de Molen for his Eurotrash Brewery project.
Here’s a description of the exhibition from Coenen’s website:
The Eurotrash Brewery project presented in full effect by an Oktoberfest beertent installation at the museum for contemporary art “het Domein” in Sittard Holland last autumn,during the local beerfest! 2 special brews were made, a beer named “Red Oktoberfestbeer”, brewed with mostly Munchener malt and a big dose of Bambergerrachmalz, fermented with a spicy Belgian yeast at a modest drinkable alcohol percentage. The whole brew (500 liters) was available on draft. Especially for the ladies however a mega strong (16% alcohol!) barley wine fermented with champagne yeast, served in elegant champagne flute, called “Eurotrash Lady.” And the ladies loved it.
Both beers were masterly brewed by Menno Olivier from Hollands best brewery “de Molen” from Bodegraven.
In the beertent a altar-esque installation build up by a bar wit 2 beerpumps refridgerators filled with 75 centiliter bottles of “Eurotrash Lady” 7 HD LCD screens with Eurotrash Brewery commercial videos and animations, e.g. the great music video “stars in a circle” by my friends Alex Kloster and Johannes Malfatti from transformer di roboter.
So that’s the context as Coenen tries to explain to his Dad why what he does is art, in this case why brewing a beer is art. It’s an interesting conversation and you can feel there’s some tension between father and son. It’s in Dutch, of course, but it is subtitled.
How to explain it to my parents – Arno Coenen from Lernert & Sander on Vimeo.