Carey,

Thanks for posting these. I'm always happy to hear about what's going on and
Mass MOCA is only a couple of hours away.

cheers,

Steve

Steven S. Taylor, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Management
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Worcester, MA, USA



-----Original Message-----
From: Aesthetics, Creativity, and Organisations Research Network on behalf of
Carey Young
Sent: Tue 1/11/2005 9:30 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: 2 exhibitions on art/commerce theme.
 
Dear all,

I realise there has been some negative comments on the list about the
circulation of PR material, but I still feel that it is constructive in some
cases ­ particularly in terms of the artists on this list who may well be
participating in exhibitions which are relevant to this group¹s concerns.

With that in mind, I have pasted below some information about two
forthcoming groups shows in which I am participating in the US. These shows
are the first major group shows in the US in some time to explore an
art/commerce area, particularly in terms of the inclusion of some of the
artists associated with the first generation of Oinstitutional critique¹. To
my mind the works in both exhibitions call into question some of the Acorn
group¹s apparent assumptions in terms of the identity and role of the
artist.

Perhaps you will be interested to visit or to download the free catalogue
(in the case of Mass MOCA.)

All best

Carey Young

artist

----

Carey Young

 - +44 (0) 7956 580 103
 - [log in to unmask]
 - www.careyyoung.com

------------

     

For Immediate Release
UNTIL: MARCH 26, 2005

SUBJECT: ARTISTS COMMENT ON THE INSTITUTIONAL REALM IN ATLANTA CONTEMPORARY
ART CENTER¹S EXHIBIT OF ³WHAT BUSINESS ARE YOU IN?²
                   
 
For More Information Contact: Stan Woodard Communications Director Atlanta
Contemporary Art Center 535 Means Street, NW Atlanta, GA 30318 404 688 1970
ext.213 [log in to unmask] www.thecontemporary.org
 
Artists comment on the institutional realm in Atlanta Contemporary Art
Center¹s exhibit of ³What Business Are You In?², a group art show curated by
Helena Reckitt. ³What Business Are You In?² is sponsored by the College Art
Association (CAA), with support from the British Council for the Arts and
the International Artists Studio Program in Stockholm. The exhibit opens on
January 29, 2005 with an artists¹ reception, preceded by a gallery talk and
closes on March 26, 2005. The CAA will hold the opening reception for their
2005 conference at the Contemporary on February 18, 2005. Irene Moon will
present a performance from ³Scientifically Speaking² during the Artists¹
Reception and again during the CAA event.
 
Artists¹ relationships with the corporate and academic worlds are complex
and often contradictory. Far from the myth of the romantic outsider, most
artists depend on the support of institutions and corporations, much as they
did on the aristocracy or church in the past. As artists engage in
self-promotion and branding, and outsource the production of their work, the
ground shared by art, higher education, and commerce becomes clear.
 
A number of artists immerse themselves in business life to revitalize the
idea of what art is and might be. Some use mimicry in order to insert
themselves within corporate or academic culture. Others take an
anthropological approach, taking the university or the corporation as
subject matter.
 
Unlike first generation conceptual artists, whose tactics developed in
tandem with - and were often absorbed by - the mass media, many of the
artists showing in ³What Business Are You In?² are not operating as strictly
oppositional. Instead, by highlighting the codependence of individuals and
organizations, they explore the moral ambiguities and strategic
identifications demanded in our ideologically impure times.
 
What Business Are You In? presents artists from Britain, Germany, Sweden and
the United States working with photography, sculpture, video, performance,
and installation. Quizzical, playful, and self-critical they explore the
slippery definitions of art, artist, and entrepreneur.
 
The exhibit is sponsored by the College Art Association, and supported by
the British Council and the International Artists Studio Program in
Stockholm.
 
Artists included in ³What Business Are You In?² are: Michael Aurbach
(Nasvhille, TN), Alex Bag (New York, NY), Andrea Fraser (New York, NY),
Jason Irwin (New York, NY), Gunilla Klingberg (Stockholm, Sweden), Lucy
Kimbell (London, England), Matthieu Laurette (Paris, France), Irene Moon
(Lexington, KY), Christian Philipp Müller (New York, NY and Franfurt,
Germnay), Adrian Piper (USA), John Salvest (Jonesboro, AK), Carey Young
(London, England).
 
This exhibit is funded in part by the College Art Association, the British
Council <http://www.britishcouncil-usa.org/arts> , and International Artists
Studio Program in Stockholm.

Founded in 1973, the Contemporary is a non-profit multidisciplinary arts
organization dedicated to excellence, experimentation and education in all
forms of contemporary art. Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, 535 Means
Street, NW, Atlanta, Georgia 30318, phone (404) 688-1970,
www.thecontemporary.org <http://www.thecontemporary.org/>


--------------

MASS MOCA

For Immediate Release
Contact: Katherine Myers
(413)664-4481 x8113
[log in to unmask]
 
New Exhibition Brings Together Business Practices and Art
 

(North Adams, Massachusetts) ­ Trade Show opening at MASS MoCA on January
29, 2005, features the work of eight artists and collectives who bring the
world of business into art. In the 21st century, it is no surprise for
visitors to contemporary art museums to find plenty of popular culture
objects in works of art, a practice dating back to Marcel Duchamp¹s
³Readymades². More recently, not only non-traditional art objects but
non-traditional art activities < business practices such as network
marketing, advertising, and motivational speaking < have found their way
into art spaces. Trade Show highlights some of the most interesting and
provocative of these practices.

Some artists in this exhibition bring the style and language of business
into an art context. For example, Carey Young¹s video Optimum Performance
documents her 2003 intervention in the Whitechapel Gallery in London: a
motivational lecture to an audience of gallery visitors using business
jargon from the corporate world. Other artists in the exhibition enter into
the world of daily commerce surreptitiously through their art: Brock
Enright¹s kidnappings-for-hire provoke discussions about spectacle and the
media while The House of Diehl¹s performance of Instant Couture produces
high-end fashion out of spontaneous and democratic processes. Conrad
Bakker¹s pyramid marketing scheme pitches a functionless product with the
straight face of scam marketeering. The sale of these commodities and
services comes bundled with implicit (and sometimes hilariously blatant)
critiques of the business paradigms they are modeled after, challenging
media, our ideas of fashion, or consumer culture in general.

Other works in the exhibition include: The Art Experience by J.S.G. Boggs
who designs, draws, and spends his own currency, not deceptive counterfeits
but rather creative adaptations of US bills; several pieces by General Idea
including FILE Megazine which was both a vehicle for taking control of their
own media coverage, as well as a networking tool for a broader communities
of artists; Christine Hill¹s The Volksboutique Care Package, a
subscription-based service whose recipient receives a customized selection
of items delivered in a jewel box case; and Corporate Sponsorship by Ingold
Airlines by Res Ingold, a fictional company and art project which exists in
the form of a wide variety of airline paraphernalia: from ads to baggage ID
tags and packing tape festooned with his red logo. For Trade Show, Ingold
Airlines participates as the exhibition¹s corporate sponsor, because, as
Ingold points out, ³the airline has been looking to expand its American
clientele.²

The art may be all about commerce but the catalogue is free and will be
available for download at www.massmoca.org <http://www.massmoca.org/>
beginning with the opening of Trade Show on January 29. The catalogue
includes images of many of the works in the exhibition plus essays by art
critic and historian Martha Buskirk, architectural historian Mario Carpo,
and philospher and Williams College Professor of Religion and Architecture
Mark Taylor. Also in conjunction with the exhibition, the House of Diehl
will perform their freewheeling fashion show Instant Couture on April 9,
2005, at 8pm in MASS MoCA¹s Club B10. Tickets for this event are $13 in
advance and $16 day of show and are available from the box office at
413.662.2111 or online at www.massmoca.org. The ticket price includes
admission to Trade Show between 6:30 and 7:30 PM.

Organized by Rebecca Uchill, an intern from the Williams College-Clark Art
Institute Graduate Program in the History of Art, the exhibition is part of
the continuing series of MASS MoCA exhibitions presented in collaboration
with the Clark Art Institute in support of MASS MoCA and the Williams/Clark
Graduate program in the History of Art. The Sterling & Francine Clark Art
Institute has been placing interns from its graduate art program in the
curatorial department at MASS MoCA since well before MASS MoCA opened.
³Clark graduate students continue to organize some of our most thoughtful,
quirky and beautiful exhibitions: Rebecca¹s exhibition joins a long and
distinguished list. We enjoy this program immensely, as do our visitors,
and we would once again like to thank the generosity of the Clark Art
Institute, and particularly Michael Conforti, for sustaining this work,²
said Joseph Thompson, director of MASS MoCA.

 MASS MoCA is the country¹s largest center for contemporary visual and
performing arts and is located in North Adams, Massachusetts, on a restored
19th-century factory campus. MASS MoCA¹s galleries are open 11 ­ 5 every day
except Tuesdays. Gallery admission is $10 for adults, $4 for children 6 ­
16, and free for children under 6. Members admitted free year-round. For
additional information, call 413 662 2111 or visit www.massmoca.org.