Mittelstrasse
Oil on canvas · 100 × 120 cm · 2024
This is Gelateria di Berna, an ice cream parlor on Mittelstrasse in Bern, a few minutes’ walk from my apartment. I painted it on a bright summer day — the kind when every table outside is taken and the line spills onto the sidewalk.
What I find interesting is the wall on the right. In reality it carries a big piece of graffiti. At first glance it looks quickly sprayed on, but it is so carefully done that it is almost certainly a commissioned work. I copied it line for line. In oil — an even slower medium — it came out a touch more precise than the original itself. That friction between an everyday format and a gallery medium is the whole point of my Memes series — this isn’t a meme, obviously, but apparently I can’t resist chasing the same clash everywhere.
The painting outlasted its subject. A few weeks after I finished, the graffiti was painted over and replaced with a new piece. The first one now survives only in oil.