With Diego Diez as dealer.

For the performative installation Under the Influence, puntWG is transformed into a casino salon. A blackjack table is accompanied by a series of Verhoef’s recent paintings. During the opening visitors are invited to join games of blackjack. The game starts at 7pm. A prize is awarded at the end of the evening. 

This project is supported by Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst.

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The cards that make up a deck are A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q and K.  

A. When things are not quite going your way at the gaming table, the table itself is sometimes blamed. As in, no, I’m not feeling this table. From time to time the dealers are also held responsible for bad results. It doesn’t really matter that they’re just following a fixed protocol.

2. You, you are my lucky charm.

3. Is it because I failed to even open my mail that I can’t fall asleep or is it the moon?

4. What does it even mean, being born under the sign of Saturn? Anyway this is what the French call un triste.

5. On my way to do groceries, I realized my keys were still in the house.

6. In The Myth of the Eternal Return Mircea Eliade writes about the archaic world. In those days it seems that not a single activity appears to have been profane. Could life still be practiced as such? 

7. Back in the South gas used to be cheap. God I miss my car.

8. Socks wear out. Words wear out. Strings of words wear out.

9. At a certain point, even the little light in the fridge will break.

10. In The House of Cards, a painting by Chardin, I see a young boy sitting at a playing table building a house of cards. Epistemological shift: Chardin inhales the last bits of air pushed away by an outpouring of data.

J. At first whisper. Whisper random speech. Then making sense. Then getting intoxicated. Then the city in silence.

Q. I wonder if there ever was such a thing as the beginning. In the Hour of the Star Clarice Lispector writes that everything in the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born. 

K. I bought a plant.