Sleep With Me

Duende, Rotterdam, 1997

Tokyo Opera Art Gallery, Tokyo 2000 Frac Nord Pas Calais, Dunkerque, 2002 CAC Vilnius, Lithuania, 2003 Rooseum, Malmo, 2003 CAPC, Bordeaux, 2006 Toimub Tartus, Tartu, Estonia, 2010

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During Perish, a weekend with live and video performances at artist run space Duende in Rotterdam in 1997 co-organised by Bik Van der Pol, Sleep With Me took place for the first time. Thirty people were invited to spend the night in one of the exhibition spaces (9 m x 13 m) where we installed 30 beds and where people could stay and watch Andy Warhol's 5 hours and 21 minutes (at 16fps) long film Sleep (1963). Only a few people have ever been able to see this film due to its length and the lack of narrative: it is not shown regularly in cinemas, not even during retrospectives of Warhol's films. The visitors engaging with Sleep With Me are both public and performers; they are each other's public and 'perform' for one another. At the same time they are the public for the film, allowing them to experience the film intensely, whilst finding themselves in the same situation as the man in the film. Sleep is crucial for this project. As one of the first films by Andy Warhol, it lies precisely on the edge between illusion and reality, real time and film-time, as does our concept for the installation project: without narrative, unfolding as time develops.

Sleep With Me can only happen with the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation and the MOMA New York, who provide the complete film, each time the piece is re-activated. Sleep With Me has been presented in 2000 at Tokyo Opera Art Gallery, in Kunsthalle Tirol in 2001, in Rooseum, Malmö and at CAC Vilnius in 2003. Every time a new, site-specific architectural situation is created.

Sleep With me, Tokyo Opera Art Gallery, Tokyo. 2000

Andy Warhol

Warhol's Sleep