Euroremonti
In the post-Soviet landscape, few phenomenas encapsulate the clash between capitalist aspiration and material reality as vividly as Euroremonti (ევრორემონტი). Emerging in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, “Euro-renovation” became a cultural obsession—a feverish attempt to purge the heavy, standardized ghosts of Soviet architecture and replace them with the glossy, individualized promise of Western Europe.
Yet, this dream of European elegance was rarely imported directly from Paris or Vienna. Instead, it was bought piecemeal from local discount markets: mountains of cheap laminate flooring, synthetic archways, hollow drywall, and imitation marble.
By staging Euroremonti inside a Viennese apartment, the exhibition performs a reverse supply-chain intervention. It brings the cheap, plastic-clad dream of “Western luxury” right back into the actual geographic heart of Western Europe.
Playing on this ubiquitous interior renovation style, the exhibition transforms the domestic space into a living critique of late capitalism, cheap market goods, and commodity fetishism. Euroremonti confronts the endless piles of mass-produced materials flooding trade hubs worldwide.
In Das Kapital, Karl Marx describes commodity fetishism as a process wherein the social relationship between human workers is disguised as a relationship between physical things. The commodity presents itself as a magical object, completely detached from the labor, exploitation, and global supply chains that produced it.
What happens when the dream of European luxury is bought at a discount market, installed with plastic glue, and brought directly to Vienna?
(text of Diego Mikava)