#thehappyshow

I’ve just spent a couple of days in Zurich on the occasion of having been invited to guide a seminar at the ZHdK on art mediation at documenta 14 together with fellow members of the editorial team of ‘Dating the Chorus’. I enjoyed the experience of ‘teaching’ in a ‘lesser-hierarchical’ context as Carmen Mörsch’s class on art mediation provided. After the class, fellow invitees and I went to see Stefan Sagmeister’s ‘The Happy Show’ at the space of the Museum für Gestaltung/ Design Museum located in the same building as the art school.

I walked independently of the other three who joined to see the exhibition. I knew of the exhibition as I had followed Sagmeister's work for some time. I had seen his TED talk online and knew the kind of visuals he created. In the exhibition, I found myself confronted with thoughts on 'Happiness', starting in a space exhibiting statistics: on how much money one (Sagmeister) needed to feel ok, or, numbers which pointed out that on average couples without children were happier than those with kids, or, where in the world people were statistically the happiest (North-America and Europe). I'm generally not a fan of statistics and quantifications of human experiences, so this element of the exhibition didn't interest me much from the start. Nevertheless, I can appreciate that others believe in the reality of numbers and, therefore, didn't mind this much. So, I made my way to the following room, where Sagmeister displayed visual experiments based on specific ideas, advices and strategies on how to be happy. These took the shape of typographical experiments, documentations of performative actions, free candy, an interactive drawing space and a video documentation of a meditation retreat Sagmeister attended.

In this video he interviewed fellow participants of a seemingly well-received meditation retreat and asked whether meditation made them happy. Apparently, all interviewees confirmed that meditation played its part in their path towards spiritual wisdom and a sense of happiness. All of the five individuals whom I watched speaking described meditation as a path towards what they call enlightenment. Others might just call this contentment, or, happiness. Interestingly, the film also showed Sagmeister speaking about his experience at the retreat. He confessed that he didn't believe a single person about their spiritual awakening through meditation.

While staying at the flat of a friend in Zurich, I chose a book from his vast collection of literature, political writing and philosophy. I chose to read Siddhartha from Hermann Hesse. Never having read a book from this author, the tale of Siddhartha captured me. I finished the book over two nights. Towards the end of the book, Siddhartha explains to his friend Govinda that he couldn't follow anyone's teaching. He wouldn't believe in the lessons and doctrines of scholars and spiritual leaders. Therefore, their path split as Govinda decided to join the votaries of spiritual leader and philosopher Gotama. Siddhartha, instead, decided to find his own path based on his intuition and became a salesman, a vagrant and finally a ferryman where learned the language of the convolutions of the river, learned to love and feel compassion.

When encountering his old friend Govinda as an old man Siddhartha tells him that he learned to develop his own mind through doing things instead of talking about them. He had learned the craft of being a ferryman from a man who had taught him to listen to the river when, instead, Siddhartha was looking for concrete answers to issues and thoughts. The river and allowed Siddhartha to see into himself and to develop his own thoughts and desires instead of replicating those of a teacher.

I feel similarly about The Happy Show. Although I'm glad to see that Sagmeister has apparently found a manner to develop happiness for himself, his 'teaching' doesn't give me much. It feels hard to dive into critical self-reflection when being confronted with Sagmeister's typographic experiments coming across as semi esotheric, semi motivational slogans. I can't help but feel similarly about the exhibition as Sagmeister describes his impressions from the meditation retreat. I can't help but feel like Siddhartha when encountering Gotama and his followers. Although I undoubtedly admire Sagmeister's inventiveness and apparent creative effort I feel the show being subverted by superficiality, honest as it might be from Sagmeister's perspective.