Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys

Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys' 2026 artist's calendar.

"For years now, the Die Vier von der Tankstelle (Four from the Gas Station) have been roaming across an area stretching out to the south of the Baltic Sea.
From Bremerhaven in the west to Kaliningrad in the east.

They prowl their way through sparsely populated areas, frightening and wantonly terrorizing isolated communities in small villages.

They yell at passersby, molest the elderly and children, smash windows, and set fires all over the place.

Once the villagers have barricaded themselves in their homes and are anxiously waiting to see what is going to happen, the Die Vier von der Tankstelle move on.
Roaring with laughter, they continue their journey, doing so purely for their own enjoyment. Their actions are completely pointless and are likely to be repeated, as they may well return time and again.
And no one knows when."

Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys have been working together as an artist duo since the end of the 1980s. Their photographs, drawings, objects, and videos—steeped in black humor, critical (self)-reflection and overlapping reality, fiction and suppressed history—play with notions of the superficial and banal.