Code Duello

Hotel Maria Kapel, Hoorn / LOODS 6, Amsterdam

2012–2014

In 2012 whilst on a residency at Hotel Maria Kapel, Hoorn (NL) Alex Farrar and Harry Meadley conducted a duel with artworks. Guided by a found duelling rule book, the artists sealed themselves inside the purpose built Render Room, and took it in turns to call out an artwork, or in some cases, progression of artworks in retaliation to each of their attempts to finish the fight and silence the opposition. From this confrontation came 50 conceptually complete works (25 each).

Eyes on the Prize; Hotel Maria Kapel, Hoorn; 2012

Code Duello (draft); Alex Farrar and Harry Meadley, 2012; annotated manuscripts; 29.7 × 21cm [60 pages]

Render Room; Alex Farrar and Harry Meadley, 2012; custom flight case with gridded interior; 260 × 480 × 207.5cm

Code Duello (promo); Alex Farrar and Harry Meadley, 2012; offset print on 120gsm paper; 84.1 × 59.4cm [double sided]

In 2013 Johannes Breyer agreed to corroborate these events with a publication that would re-imagine the duel from several perspectives. To that aim the works were examined in sequence, an account of the artist's experience was transcribed and supported with an appendix of images, and Rudi Fuchs proposed a precedent in Raphael and Sebastiano del Piombo's paintings for Narbonne Cathedral. This publication preceded the actualisation of the duel which was given its exhibition in 2014.

Read Book

In 2014 in the lead up to and during the Code Duello exhibition fifty posters were posted along the number 10 tram route in Amsterdam from Marnixplein to Azartplein - where the exhibition was taking place. Each poster listed a single work from the duel and ran in sequence from one, at the start of the route, to fifty near the entrance to the exhibition. Incidentally, this route connected the two artists' apartments.

In 2014 the Code Duello exhibition at Loods 6 marked a return to the source material with the full chain of works actualised and installed in sequence. Visitors to the bagagehal are invited to experience the duel as it originally unfolded, with each work conjoined to the next, effectively creating one super work.

In 2014 Johannes Breyer designed the Code Duello exhibition catalogue that supplements the original publication Code Duello (book) with documentation of the actualisation of the duel between Alex Farrar and Harry Meadley as presented in Loods 6, Amsterdam, 13–23 February 2014.