The Birthday Party - 20/05/2010

Exhibiting with an intention to critique that of the white cube with a inherent fluxus quality imbued within the one off event! The group I was in intiated the construction of the mini white cubes with an intent to destroy them aesthetically by encouraging people to write their Pinter's Birthday Party quotes upon it. Other key displays of the event was the construction of the white cube cake and most importantly the lauch of the website:

www.sereneinnovation.co.uk/TheOrganisationofDirt.html

This exhibition has a seemingly ironic and humorous take in regards to celebrating the 'birthday' of the white cube. With black bunting symbolic of an anti-white cube and the destruction of the white cube (in the form of cake) it can be seen that the white cube can be viewed as a mockery in regards to the display of art. My reasoning for being so harsh upon the white cube is that it itself is deemed as a work of art in its own right to a certain extent.

Proposal: My White Cube is My Taxi

So I propose a travelling exhibition in the form of a taxi covered in Bumper stickers signed by individual artists. The fee for this exhibition will be covered by the Taxi fare. The taxi will be based in London. Consumers will be unaware of the exhibition until they enter the taxi where an exhibition catalogue or a text explication will be at their disposal. In essence the work is critiquing that of the white cube space and the concept of the artist as celebrity along with an element of escapism in the form Fluxus and Situationism due to the random generative possibilities they provide.

Combining Philippe Thomas' idea of the Readymade as signed by its owner with Michele Bernstein's comment, "Only taxis allow true freedom of movement. By travelling varying distances in a set time, they contribute to automatic disorientation. Since taxis are interchangeable, no connection is established with the "traveller" and they can be left anywhere and taken at random. A trip with no destination, diverted arbitrarily en route, is only possible with a taxi's essentially random itinerary".

I propose an exhibition that does not avert the commodity and capitalism but embraces it. By using Situationism as an overtly political medium in order to escape the powers of the signs (media) that subconsciously guide us through this supposed non-reality. I hope that the generative qualities of this moving exhibition will somehow provide escapism and allow a 'true freedom of movement'. Constructing a situation such as this will no doubt raise numerous problems:

1. Do I want the taxi to be known as a white cube/alternative space or allow the passenger to experience the true freedom of movement – but then how can they experience a true freedom of movement when they have a set starting point and destination in their journey.
   
2. Maybe the emphasis should be on the taxi as an everyday object experiencing this sense of freedom thus blurring the distinction between art and life in conjunction with the aims and ideals of the Fluxus group!
   
3. By embracing that of capitalism through taxi fares it would contradict the original notion I have posed, i.e. that the Taxi should provide a form of escapism but then if the passenger has a set destination and pick up point it will make no difference to them if they had to pay or not.
   
4. As the artist Manzoni inscribed his signature on a random person's show what is not to say that I cannot get artists to sign (in the form of a bumper sticker) the white taxi thereby undermining the role of the white cube to an extent. What I mean by undermining the white cube would mean by-passing the artists work, getting straight to the popularity of the artist and questioning what the consumers go to see when they visit a gallery. By getting artists to sign the exterior of the taxi would in some way propel the taxi into the realm of the art market – but would pose various issues including the deterioration of the art.
   
5. One key difference with this exhibition unlike the others is that the entry price is varying and there is no escaping our commodified/capitalist culture. There is only escape of the real for the taxi as an object.
   
6. How will the consumer know that they are in a work of art or will they see the exterior of the taxi as purely advertising? As Kaprow states in Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life, 'Those wishing to be called artists, in order to have some or all of their acts and ideas considered art, only have to drop an artistic thought around them, announce the fact and persuade others to believe it. That's advertising. As Marshall McLuhan once wrote, "Art is what you can get away with".'
   

I can see how contradictory this proposal may appear but this is precisely the problems avant-garde artist's face. By amalgamating the 'object' i.e. that of the artist's signature I hope to escape the notion of display as a form of fetishism by creating a situation. 'The "constructed situation" was defined as a moment of life, concretely and deliberately constructed by the collective organisation of unitary environment and the free play of events.' – Simon Ford. It could in effect be seen as similar to that of The Naked City, a creation which was credited to Guy Debord.

Context of Display

'The context of display is an important issue for art history because it colours our perception and informs our understanding of works of art.'

(Barker, Emma, Contemporary Cultures of Display, p.8)

This is to an extent true as it can be seen to elevate the artist to a position of the celebrity which in turn colours our perception of what we see when we look at art. With regards to this concept of celebrity, Gavin Turk appears to have taken a critical role in his artistic approach to that of the celebrity. At face value his work appears clever especially in regards to the Situationist critique below although referring to Badiou it is suggested that his work has become one in a process that Badiou reveals as an ego or narcissistic form of particularism i.e. it is no longer about the art but that of the artist, concealing the truth behind the art. In his attempt to restore the rights of an independent affirmation (to quote one of his 15 points) Badiou confers that:

'Art cannot be the expression of mere particularity, whether it be ethnic or "me-ist." It is the impersonal production of a truth addressed to all.'

(http://www.lacan.com/lacinkXXIV5.htm)

Debord and the Celebrity

"By concentrating in himself or herself the image of a popular role, the celebrity, spectacular representation of a living human being, concentrates this banality. The condition of the "Star" is the specialization of the apparently lived; the object of identification with shallow apparent life, which must compensate for the fragments of actually lived productive specializations. Celebrities exist in order to represent various types of life. Styles and styles of comprehending society, free to express themselves GLOBALLY."

(Debord, Society of the Spectacle and Other Films, 1992, p.80)

Let's Have A Party For The Common Object

Claes Oldenburg celebrates the common object by recreating it in material form. Whilst we are able to reify ourselves with such objects or rather ‘art’ it can be seen that Pop art has a significantly different agenda to that of Fluxus. Whilst Fluxus inherently strives for an art that is no longer considered art, in which no terms can be applied. In contradistinction to Fluxus, Pop artists considered painting and sculpture were different from that of the readymade object. With reference to Claes Oldenburg (in Art since 1900):

‘I am for an art that is political – erotical – mystical, that does something
other than sit on its ass in a museum…I am an art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself.’

‘Readymades Belong to Everyone’

In the case of Philippe Thomas Readymades do belong to everyone.

"Pro-duced bar-code paintings which critiqued the art and museum world. Collectors and museums who purchased one were obliged to sign it, thereby questioning the status of an artist's unique signature.' (Art and Artifact: The Museum as Medium, James Putnam)

This is precisely what I have been looking for, a critique on the provenance and status of a signature be it of the artist or of whoever owns art.

Do Not Touch

Reading through Art and Artifact: The Museum as Medium by James Putnam I came across Dove Bradshaw's piece of Do Not Touch (1979) = genius.

"Bradshaw replicated an official 'Do Not Touch' sign from MoMa, New York, and also produced a museum label describing it. She then fixed it to the wall in one of the galleries; the label was subsequently moved by security guards." (In Art and Artifact, p.172)

The fact that it highlighted that anyone of an unsuspecting nature could replicate and attach such a label to museum institutions such as the MoMA in New York has further enhanced my idea for my proposal, which I am still conjugating. Although having being recognized as an artist in the book art and artifact it can be seen how Bradshaw has critiqued art and the museum world thereby questioning the status of the artist.