THE OS PRESENTS :: PRINT! DOCUMENT EXHIBIT A : RE/PRODUCTION and RE/PRESENTATION // CREATIVE CAPITAL and STRATEGIES FOR RESILIENCE for the ARTIST as ACCIDENTAL ENTREPRENEUR
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
PRINT! DOCUMENT :: EXHIBIT A :: RE/PRODUCTION and RE/PRESENTATION
LAUNCHPAD BROOKLYN
721 FRANKLIN AVENUE
BROOKLYN NY
OPENING JUNE 14th, 2013 at 6pm
Curated by Managing Editor Lynne DeSilva-Johnson
with Production Assistance from Ben Wiessner, Taylor Quilty, Kevin William Reed, and Georgia Elrod
exhibiting selected artists and poets published in PRINT! Volumes 1 – 3, as well as our online series:
Andrew Breitenberg / SELAH, Kimberly Convery, Ada Athorp, Kreh Mellick, Kevin WIlliam Reed, Michael Fusco, Carey Maxon, Georgia Elrod, Marissa Bluestone, Jacob Perkins, Eliza Swann, Justin Richel, Harmon McAllister, Sara Shaoul, Daniel Aaron, Caits Meissner, Eric Meyer, Sarah Pinder, Chloe Bass, Leah Matthews, Seldon Yuan, Montana Ray, William Considine, Aaron Liechty, Gary Sloboda, Michael Chocholak, Shanna Maurizi, Peter Milne Greiner, Kameelah Rasheed, Sarada Rauch, Allison Malinsky, Phyllis Wat, Fiona Gardener, and Desert Raven Photography (Ashley Garvy and Audrey Helow)
With a PANEL DISCUSSION (ALSO AVAILABLE IN LIVESTREAM SIMULCAST) ON
CREATIVE CAPITAL and STRATEGIES FOR RESILIENCE
for the ARTIST as ACCIDENTAL ENTREPRENEUR
featuring MONTANA RAY (poet, translator, poets house fellow, founder, Brooklyn Ladies Text-Based Salon), SELDON YUAN (conceptual artist), KEVIN WILLIAM REED (printmaker/performance artist), SHANNA MAURIZI (filmmaker, video/conceptual/installation artist), GEORGIA ELROD (painter, decorator, co-curator/ co-founder of HELIOPOLIS PROJECT SPACE), the founders of MELLOW PAGES LIBRARY, the current curatorial team at OPENINGS COLLECTIVE, and other guests to be confirmed
Panel at 8pm
Followed by libations and general merriment
with MUSIC by DJ MICKEY PEREZ
until the wee hours.
KEYWORDS and CONSIDERATIONS:
resilience, circulation, currency, value, high/low, scale, “original,” ownership, private property, craft, practice, market, resale value, shelf life, materialism, limited edition, perception, a priori, agency, representation, commerce, “selling out”, commercialism, capital, capitalism, social capital, entrepreneurship, diy, cheap, competition, collaboration, collaborative consumption, appropriation, copy, counterfeit, multiples, alternative currencies, hucksterism, fake, venue, charles eisenstein, radical economics, david graeber, throw-away, disposable, planned obsolescence, fame, star power, celebrity, museum/gallery/institution, baudrillard’s dead museums, benjamin’s art in the age of mechanical reproduction, pop art, …
Andy Warhol is said to have quipped, “anyone can do what I do,” but the perception of self-actualized agency is far from the standard creative experience. Why? This isn’t a new question, but as platforms and methodologies continue to emerge offering low-cost, high-quality DIY avenues of re/production and sale, the concept of the art act as “pure” practice, set apart from the intention to engage in commerce stands in ever increasing conflict with our ability as creators to take the reins of our professional sustainability.
What legitimizes a gallery, museum, press, or other cultural institution to manufacture and sell re/productions in bulk volume without being perceived as devaluing the original work and/or the “virgin” desireability of the artist while the act of doing so on the part of the creator can make them persona non grata and/or is avoided / considered a risk / career suicide and/or an act of betrayal, perceived of as “selling out” / cheapening of the act of art making / inauthentic / cheating (or, giving up / commercialization — not “real” art)?
When we create our own media, circumventing “appropriate,” “legitimate,” and/or “respected” (or at the least, “recognizable” / “familiar”) channels, do we undermine our ability to be taken seriously as an artist? (How) can a creative practice that conceptually, markedly addresses and includes this strategy allow us to supercede this issue and/or its pitfalls?
What are contemporary and/or historical precedents for such a model of professional behavior? What are strategies for creating and sustaining value through the act of publication, printing, documentation, storytelling — re/production and re/presentation — in saleable objects with a range of “craft” identity outside of the vetted institutions wherein this is expected and accepted?
In EXHIBIT A we seek to not only address but actively engage in exhibiting, promoting, and modelling a range of strategies available to the creative practitioner, who finds him or herself not only “artist” but accidental entrepreneur. How can we look to the practices of cultural institutions, publications, and industry to locate the means of resilient, independent support for our work (and our lives) via our creative production instead of in addition to it? How can our work work for us?
As a publication and press, both on and offline, Exit Strata seeks to demonstrate the power of articulation, process narration, and documentation. Since our inception, it has been the intention of our PRINT! collaborative volumes and PRINT! DOCUMENT book series to explore the role of the printed page — in particular the “book” — as a continued site of value catalysis for creative people of any and all disciplines (including, in particular, those artists whose work appears to be ephemeral or otherwise non-page in nature, such as musicians, filmmakers, installation and conceptual artists, and so on).
In EXHIBIT A we consider printed matter again, stressing in this case the various forms of re/production and re/presentation already widely and familiarly available for the popular circulation of visual art — postcards, artbooks, posters, high quality prints, and other objects. Showcasing the work of creative practitioners who have been featured in PRINT! Volumes 1-3, as well as salon participants and other artists who have been featured in Exit Strata’s AWESOME CREATORS and FIELD NOTES web series, this show offers artist and viewer alike an opportunity to consider how re/production and re/presentation can extend the life of our efforts, increasing the impact of our work both for ourselves and our community…without causing us professional damage.
As the name suggests, EXHIBIT A is not purely show but study, investigation, a document offered as evidence in the query of RE/PRODUCTION and RE/PRESENTATION, and the creative person’s continued battle with and around these actions as they seek validation and “success” in an industry wherein one has traditionally relied on others for survival.
The show will feature RE/PRODUCTION, both in the gallery as well as in the “store” — which is also re/presented as part of the show itself, a nod to the creative, conceptual act of self-narration that can intentionally speak to and include an assertion of art work as site of cultural production and capital generation — not only for the gallery or publication, but for the artist.
Attendees to EXHIBIT A are invited to purchase and order re/productions at a range of value levels, from the humble postcard to small, flexible books and folios assembled onsite to posters, prints, and reproductions on a variety of other media such as t-shirts, mugs, or bags, much the options you might find at a museum shop. In addition, the e-commerce model built in tandem with EXHIBIT A will expand far and long past the physical, geographic, and temporal bounds of the show, offering attendees, community members, and artists alike the opportunity to continue to re/produce, purchase, and foster dialogue around the translation of their work into saleable media.
The panel discussion, on the show’s opening night, invites the public — both artists and non — to engage in this question with EXHIBIT A’s curators, artists, and other community members already practicing creative economic modelling. The panel will be livestreamed on exitstrata.com during the event itself to encourage realtime, offsite dialogue in our extended international community, as well as available for viewing, sharing, and download in perpetuity.
