GUINNESS
Asier Pérez González

Belfast Tavern, 15th of May 2002.

Coinciding with the opening of the exhibition Troubled Images, to mark his participation in Front Line Compilation the artist Asier Pérez González is making the following appeal to invite people to a get-together in the Belfast Tavern bar in San Sebastián:

(Come and try a real Irish beer for free on the 15th May from 8.30 to 10.30 pm in Belfast Tavern. Juan de Bilbao 9, Donostia.
You have to say this sentence to the barman in your best Irish accent in a very friendly manner):

"An ghfuil cead agam píonta guinness a fhail ledo thoil?" "Go rabí mile maith agat?"

Phonetically
"On will keat agam pionta guinness a oll, le do jel?"

First they serve you and then you say thank you
"Go rau mile ma agat"

With this proposal Asier Pérez González aims to create a cultural, artistic exchange with advertising based on the use of stereotypes and clichés associated with a country or region. The idea is to offer a free pint of Guinness to anyone who asks for it in Gaelic. This triggers a cultural and economic exchange, by using pints of beer as an object for this exchange.
The invitation has been given out through posters and stickers that are distributed all over the city that use advertising formats similar to 2x1 special offers or Happy Hours. It's all about bringing people together in a different place motivated by a particular interest. In this case, drinking Guinness.

In this project Asier Pérez González reflects on the theme-park world that we live in and on how the ideas of frontiers and culture are changing very rapidly conditioned by the world-wide branding culture and its interest in marketing the exotic. Just as a pizza captures the sense of what Italy is, a pint of Guinness is the cultural ambassador of Ireland. Pérez González has chosen a bar that is tailor-made for this project, the Belfast Tavern, a bar located in the heart of the Old Part of San Sebastián, which is meticulously decked out with all kinds of motifs or referents to Northern Ireland. Posters, photographs of the city, stickers, flags, etc… Using this scenario, Pérez González tries to form connections around the nationalist identification between Basque and Irish culture.

In his work Asier Pérez González constantly puts across ideas about cultural exchanges, territoriality, globalisation and questions connected to identity.
To do this, he uses mass communication channels, marketing and advertising strategies, conceptual graphic design and aesthetic approaches to social concerns. An example of this is the Kissarama project, which was an attempt to beat the Guinness World record for couples kissing each other at the same time and in the same place: (The International Language, Belfast 2001).
In Funky Baskenland (Casco, Utrecht, 2000), the artist put a Basque menu in a Surinamese restaurant for a week, to stress the differences that gastronomic traditions involve that are not only cultural but also social.

pict1.jpg A pint of Guinness and a sticker * 11K pict2.jpg With Josu the bar tender * 28K pict3.jpg In the Belfast Tavern * 23K pict4.jpg Josu serving some pints * 16K pict5.jpg People drinking pints * 27K pict6.jpg Serving Guinness * 23K pict7.jpg Asier Pérez González * 17K

* Photo Pernan Goñi