Previously showcased at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf as part of the KARL SCHMIDT-ROTTLUFF SCHOLARSHIP, DANIEL HOPP’s video installation BOUGHT WITH PLEASURE has grown with a new episode, capturing social processes filmed during its exhibition there. In collaboration with JOEY BARGELD, ADAM CZERLITZKI, HELLENA HUECK, MARC, EAGLE PRO, AMOOR S., SAZOU, STUNNER, and other guests, HOPP stages a new performative situation and installation of the work at SPRINK, Düsseldorf. Under the call “Free Amoor,” the performers present hold a solidarity concert to raise donations for Amoor S. from Arusha, Tanzania. Originally, Amoor S. was supposed to attend the performance in person, but his visa application was denied on grounds of “lack of credibility.” This action becomes part of the filmic-performative work BOUGHT WITH PLEASURE, joining an endless chain of farce, hypocrisy, sincere yet failed endeavors, where reality and fiction become indistinguishable—not only for the viewers but also for the participants themselves.

„Bought with Pleasure is initially the result of agreeing to document an attempt to find a gemstone that occurs only in the mines of northern Tanzania with a camera. To this end, an investor, seeking the Tanzanite as a solution to various problems, offers a film budget of 15,000 euros. A basically penniless artist and his film crew only need to undertake this journey. And that means putting themselves at risk in the same way, participating in a game that, captured by the camera, they could also lose. Together with the investor and an aspiring gem dealer, they travel from Munich to Arusha, to a region that was already exploited as a gemstone source during the German occupation. They are then confronted by the visitors of the – for everyone involved – first presentation of the video installation. This confrontation, however, becomes an element of the supposedly completed work. Bought with Pleasure is a compilation of transitional states that continually take on new forms on-site. The camera has not yet stopped working.“

— Nils Fock