Rich Bott has moved into the Artist Studio at the 25hours Hotel. The American artist from Los Angeles is picking up the thread again in Zurich and on Langstrasse: Rich Bott showed an exhibition at the message salon, in Perla-Mode, in 2008.
Rich Bott traces the absurdity of Switzerland in Zurich. The American roams through second-hand stores and flea markets, finds catalogues, magazines and vinyl records, collects and invents Zurich German terms and tests Switzerland for its folklore and everyday consumer kitsch, while eating bratwurst and rösti, always on the lookout for “Geissengeist” (spirit of the goat).
In 1995, Rich Bott founded the art project Animal Charm with the American artist Jim Fetterley, which is one of the pioneers of footage video art. While in the 1990s Animal Charm used found VHS tapes such as home and instructional videos or recordings of TV series, news or talk shows, but also vinyl records or music cassettes, today the Internet and platforms such as YouTube or Instagram are increasingly an inexhaustible treasure trove for their art, which deconstructs the madness, aesthetics and absurdity of the American media present.
As part of a public event in the hotel suite Room 724, message salon embassy is presenting a fanzine by Rich Bott with drawings, found objects and texts created during his stay at the hotel on Langstrasse. The vernissage of the publication will be accompanied by a video screening on the hotel TV, after which the artist Rich Bott and film scientist Marcy Goldberg will talk about VHS video art, American media and pop culture, Zurich and Los Angeles, Californian lifestyle, surfing, goat spirit and Zurich’s Oberer Letten river pool.
message salon embassy Zine No. 6
“Geissengeist Gelassenheit” Rich Bott, Edition of 100 Expl. ©2017 Rich Bott & message salon