Goldin+Senneby

(since 2004, based in Stockholm)

Standard Length of a Miracle, with Jonas Hassen Khemiri (author), Tigran Avetisyan (costume designer), and Dmitry Konovalov, Sergey Strebkov, Alexey Sviridov (woodworkers), 2016–2018
Installation, dimensions variable
Courtesy Michael Storåkers collection and the artists
Originally produced for Tensta konsthall, Stockholm
Garage would like to thank Apetta European Dry Cleaners and Volna Dry Cleaners (both St. Petersburg)

Swedish duo Goldin+Senneby (Simon Goldin and Jacob Senneby) is known for its complex productions that include elements of literature, installation, and performance. The artists’ long-term project Headless links alchemy and modern financial markets. Standard Length of a Miracle is a dramatization of a story written specifically for this work by Jonas Khemiri, a descendant of migrants from Tunisia. Its protagonist is a migrant laborer in Stockholm who works at a dry cleaner while trying to find access to more privileged strata of society. He is attracted to art school students: in their manner of dressing he sees the highest manifestation of freedom and self-esteem. To pass an interview at an art center, the protagonist appropriates the Swedish name Anders Reuterswäld. From things left at the dry cleaner he creates several outfits that he believes resemble those worn by art world people. A social inversion occurs in which an outsider perceives the “looks” of the creative class as a uniform and not a sign of uniqueness. For each version of the work, Goldin+Senneby invite local fashion designers to cooperate and co-create Standard Length of a Miracle. In Moscow, their co-author was the fashion designer Tigran Avetisyan, who followed the protagonist’s recipe and created a collection of clothes for Garage employees from things forgotten in dry cleaners in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Every day at exactly 14:12 for the duration of the exhibition, a Garage staff member will read aloud Jonas Khemiri’s story.