Hello Useless – for W and Friends is a solo performance about stopping which attempts to be utterly meaningless. In truth however, Claessens has created a radical, deeply touching portrait of an artist balancing between the need to be active and useful, and the desire to turn away and do nothing regarded as important in our society.
For this solo, Benny returns to the base. At once honest and intimate, exuberant and ecstatic, he creates moments of apparent meaning entirely out of context – simply presents them – and in doing so opens them and us to new interpretation. Without critique, judgement or grandstanding, his humble existence in front of three glittering letters JOY somehow stretches toward the essence of our humanity.
“I consider Hello Useless – For W and Friends a celebration of uselessness. On an existential level, that is. It doesn’t matter whether art is necessary or not. Nothing is. But why shouldn’t it exist?” Benny Claessens in VETO Magazine.