Geen Geld voor Mijn Leven – No Money For My Life

2004

photocopies and slide projection

‘Good morning, Otto, first I would like to introduce myself. My Name is Henriette and I work for a television production company, John de Mol productions in The Netherlands. One of the programs that we make at this company is ‘Geld voor je leven’ [Money for your life]. This program registrates the lives of ‘interesting people’. I thought it would be interesting to follow the works and whereabouts of a modern artist. This is the reason of this e-mail…’

Otto Berchem responded to this e-mail from a researcher of John de Mol Productions, creators of Big Brother, and shortly afterwards he was invited for a casting session. In the end he was not chosen, and the only proof which is left from that day at Endemol Studios is a number of pictures that one of Berchem’s friends made during the casting, because when the artist phoned up the next day to ask if he could have a copy of the video of the interview, he was told the tape had already been erased, and Berchem had again disappeared from the producer’s annals. In his work Geen Geld voor mijn Leven (No money for my life, 2000) the e-mail correspondence between Berchem and the Endemol staffer is documented, and the slides from the day of his casting session is to be seen.