CHRIS DOBROWOLSKI
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Panorama Mesdag

The film that's projected from the toy 'Beam Bus' onto a cut out, 4:3 section of the Panorama Mesdag book. ( 5 min. 23 sec's) 
Picture
Installing 'Panorama Mesdag' into the back of the real beam bus. Photo: Theo Mahieu
Picture
There is a section cut out of the book so that projector fits iniside. The 4:3 cut out flap that forms the screen is simply folded back at 90 degrees to the image projected from the toy van. Photo: Eric van Straaten
​Jacqueline Heerema (Badgast coordinator) gave me a box with some old reviews from previous artists at Badgast to look through. I found evidence of a project by Bram Esser-a previous art piece called “Panorama Badgast”. It was a parody of the 'Panorama Mesdag' which I had never heard of. In fact I thought that the photograph of the panorama Mesdag that 'Esser' had included in his review was something that he had faked. I wrongly assumed that he had used an image of the Panorama at Waterloo- Belgium (Which I had heard of because I’m English) and a photograph of the beach at Scheveningen and put the two together in photo shop. I couldn’t read the accompanying Dutch text so it was only when I met Bram Esser that he explained to me that it was a real Panorama.
Picture
Panorama Waterloo
Picture
Panorama Mesdag
​I always assumed that a life size panorama gave the viewer an experience of something they couldn't get in real life. Therefore I found it difficult to comprehend of a panorama being made of a beach that was only a 10 minute tram ride away. On a visit to the panorama Mesdag museum in Den Haag, I bought an exhibition catalogue book. This, in a sense, represented one of many layers of real and unreal.
Picture
I took the book and a kite to the beach where Mesdag must have painted the panorama from. The entire beach front is being redeveloped so I could not get exactly where he would have been because the area is fenced off. I think I was quite close. I made a paper aeroplane from the double page pull out of the panorama in the book and launched it from my kite with a small lightweight toy van (Beam bus) fixed to it. 
Picture
Toy van fixed to paper aeroplane.
​As with the other pieces, it was important to show the van disappearing in the film but retrieve it afterwards so that I could create my visual paradox (ie. By using the toy van to project the film from). Despite the fact that I could probably buy an identical toy van on the internet, I believed it was vital to use the original for the sake of integrity and authenticity.

As the paper aeroplane was launched from the kite it slowly glided down and fell into the water. It floated on the surface but an offshore wind gently started to take it out to sea. I was forced to put down the camera, take off my clothes and jump in to swim after it. I quickly reached a point where I wasn’t sure that if I carried on chasing it I would have enough energy to make it back to the beach. I gave up and swam back to land.
Picture
​Photo: Nicoletta Van Doorn.- kite
​Later, standing on the beach, semi naked and exhausted, I realised I had become fixated on the authentication of the object. I also realised that this obsession didn’t make any difference to the viewer at all. Another similar red van would do as no-one would know the difference apart from me. In the past I have been adamant that the genuine authentic object was sacrosanct. I knew now, for a fact, that deep down I didn’t think this detail was as important either – it certainly wasn’t worth dying for like a stupid tourist.

I never felt in danger in the Antarctic despite its reputation for being a hostile environment. It was therefore particularly strange to find myself standing on the beach at Scheveningen after this event wondering how such an innocent activity as flying a kite suddenly became so potentially life threatening. 
  • Home
  • in the art gallery
    • Transit Transition >
      • Train Wave
      • The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner
      • Self Evaluation
      • something About Global Capitalism But Less Ernest
      • The Man From Human Resources Is Coming to See You
      • The Ofsted Inspection
      • The Risk Assessment
      • Personal development training day
      • My Matchbox Toy Lorry
      • The Zero Hours Contract
      • The Plinth
    • Remnants Of Utopia >
      • Austerity Miniature Mayday Parade
      • The Contract
      • Agitprop/anti-agitprop Train
      • Siberia
      • How We Won The War
      • Revolutionary Reminder
      • The Marketing Team
    • Antarctica >
      • Project Outline
      • Antarctica Essay
      • Reviews
      • Sledge
      • Toy Sledge
      • Airfix Antarctic Aeroplane Hoover
      • Eating Penguins
      • The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner
      • Toy Snowmobile
      • Rat Box, Bird Island
      • Rejection Letters
      • The Last Roll Of Kodachrome In The World
      • John Deere Gator And Specimen
      • There Are No More Dogs In Antarctica
      • Furthest South- J C B
      • Captain Scotts Bookshelf
      • Antarctic Toy Portraits
    • Landscape, Seascape, Skyscape , Escape >
      • Seascape Escape (No.1)
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        • Sketches for Tank
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        • End-Piece
      • Reviews and Press
    • Offer Must End Soon >
      • Essay Jess Twyman
      • Reviews
      • Offer Must End Soon
      • Buy My Painting!
      • "Buy My Painting!" For the hard of hearing.
      • "Don't Make Me Take It All Back Home With Me!"
      • How We Won The War
      • "Stop me and buy one!"
      • 'The Cornfield'... free gift inside
      • "Catalogue!"
      • The Contemporary Art Scene
      • Camera Crash
      • "Untitled" hanging itself
      • Buy My Fucking Painting!
      • Absolut Ship !
      • Executive Toy!
      • Art Stunt Suicide Disaster
      • Roll up, Roll up. Get your Art here!
    • Big Country >
      • Big Country
      • The box you stick your head into
      • Europa, Hoek van Holland to Vladivostok
      • Caravans
      • magazine article
    • All at Sea
    • & Model >
      • Reviews
    • Give Me The Money
    • Music and domestic appliances >
      • Sketch for aeroplane
      • The Plinth
      • Cold War Monument
      • Wagon Wheels
      • Vacuum Cleaner Circle
    • ...on the wall...in boxes >
      • My Shitty Studio No.2
      • Sketch for aeroplane No.6
      • Landscape, Seascape, Skyscape, Fire Escape
      • My horrible studio No.1
      • Untitled 240 Volts
      • On the way to the beach party
      • Toy Me No.2
      • It's for you
    • Sweet Jars, glass cases on books >
      • Thatcher
      • The council estate is coming
      • Attack drone and books
      • Muck Spreader
      • Trojan Horse
      • Security Camera
      • Move
      • Epsom Printer, Tank, God
      • Contemporary art- its the law!
      • Tank Caravans Paint Brush
      • Buy to Let
      • Section 21
  • On The Stage
    • All Roads Lead To Rome >
      • Project outline
      • reviews
    • Antarctica >
      • Project Outline
      • Reviews
    • Poland 3 Iran 2 >
      • Project Outline
      • Reviews
    • Landscape, Seascape, Skyscape , Escape >
      • Project Outline
      • Reviews
      • tours and extra stuff
    • How NOT to make a living as an Artist
    • Toy Stories
  • Outside the art gallery
    • Auspicious Phoenix Recycling Palace
    • Covid lockdown with Boris >
      • Boris zip wire
      • Covidtrix
      • what is the truth but a lie agreed upon
    • Goat Train
    • washed up Car - go >
      • Project Outline
      • Reviews
      • 'EK52 UDP'
      • 'VK02 GFK'
      • 'Y194 LPP'
      • Washed Up Car-go (Hastings)
      • Washed Up Car- go (Brighton)
    • Vanishing Point >
      • Project Outline
      • Reviews
      • Red Sports Car, East To West
      • Studebaker Camera Car, Going To The Beach
      • Kite And Candy, Buick
      • Kennedy Lincoln Continental
      • Ambulance Emergency
      • Pink Mustang, at the Golden Gate Bridge
      • Matchbox
      • Instant Gratification
    • Badgast Residency >
      • Short Essay
      • De Wrede Zee
      • Fish
      • Chips
      • Windmill
      • Panorama Mesdag
    • Selfie Slot Car Racing >
      • Project Outline
      • Film by Andy Wiltshire
      • Librarian Pit Crew
      • Experiments with sound
      • Selfie Slot Car Racing at Firstsite Gallery
      • Flitwick Library
    • Coventry Transport Museum Residency >
      • Coventry Concept
      • Poetry Vending Machine
    • Cheap Cheap >
      • Review
    • A Portrait of Casper DeBoer
    • Cranes
    • Hessle Road Residency >
      • Hessle Road (continued)
    • Reisbureau Mareado >
      • Mareado (Continued)
      • City magazine review
    • Windmills >
      • Aerial, wind, sun and radio
      • Guitar Played by the Wind >
        • Winners and Losers
      • Self Portrait
      • Jesus punches banker
    • Performance Sculptures >
      • The groundsman
      • All seeing bicycle lamp
      • Pasta 4 one
      • Revolutionary Reminder
  • publications
    • Solo projects >
      • Escape >
        • Read an Extract
      • Antarctica
      • Offer Must End Soon
      • Tangents
      • Landscape, Seascape, Skyscape , Escape
      • Aerial, wind, sun and radio
    • Group Projects >
      • oceans
      • Talk to me
      • & Model
      • Middlesbrough Art Weekender
      • Translating the Street
      • 1st Sino/british Cont. Art, Yentai
      • Performance, Transport And Mobility
      • Inbetween PS1, New York and Shanghai
      • Odd Coupling
      • Landscapes of Exploration
      • Flip Shift Show Switch
      • Baudrillard Now
      • The Juddykes
      • Dr Roberts Magic Bus
      • Continental Breakfast
      • Lat (living Apart Together)
      • North. Amsterdam 2004
      • Westwijk, Vlaardingen, De Strip
      • Da Da Da Strategies Against Marketecture
      • Reisburo Mareado (The Travel Brochure)
      • Catalogus Mareado
      • Kunst Over De Grens
      • This Flat Earth
      • The Uses of an Artist
      • Kettles Yard Open 97
      • Royal College Of Art Centenary Year
      • Millennium Encyclopedia
    • Press
  • About / contact
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    • are you on the right website?