d o n ' t b e l i e v e w h a t y o u s e e o n t v

A relatively productive few days has enabled us to complete some of the work for Scaffold Gallery’s show ’14 Ways to Get Rich Quick’. Our research into ‘The Next Big Thing’ landed us on a descriptive path; we realised that text was required to ‘set the scene’, as it were, since this is where our interest stemmed from in the first place. This of course is the narrative that was built up around Geoffrey Buonardi’s personality and history to order to increase his artistic value. The work is therefore a standard art gallery plaque stating all the facts that come from the film; price, title, medium etc. included is a description of Buonardi, the same description that raises the monetary value of his work from $0 to $10,000. It accompanies a space on the wall which is marked out with masking tape as to act as a suggestion of the work which isn’t there due to the fact that it was stolen/never existed in the first place due to it being the subject of a film. The title is ‘the act is not culpable unless the mind is guilty’ and it refers to 'Mens rea' which is ‘guilty mind’ in Latin and is a legal term about intention to commit a prohibited act. This relates to both the idea of stealing the painting and the film’s inaccurate depiction artists. We are also involved in unlawful activity as we are, in a sense, acting as thieves; thieving the thieves through invention of an artwork.

‘An evening with isthisit?’ opens tonight and we’ve got a work from the obstructure series in there displayed in a slightly different way to how we originally intended but it’s still conceptually in line with what it’s about. It’s on the wall on the middle of a ring binder (pictured below). It relates to the office imagery/professional tools of Google SketchUp, which is intended to be used by architects, or individuals of similar professions.

r e a l a r t b y f a k e a r t i s t

The exhibition with Scaffold Gallery is fast approaching and we’re beginning to collate our research and decide on what to make. It’s titled ’14 Ways To Get Rich Quick’ and it’s an exhibition styled as an artists’ response to (as you’ve probably guessed) a get rich quick guide. We’ve got ‘invent something’ and ‘exploit people’ which is why we’ve been looking into fictional artists such as Gilda Dent (thinking down the invent path). This research is about looking into how art and artists are portrayed within popular culture. It led us to The Cultural Norms Theory; the theory states that the medium provides a ‘definition of a situation’ which the actor believes to be real. This definition provides guides for action that appear to be approved and supported by society. The theory was born from the notion that television characters do influence viewer behaviours. We’ve also been sourcing various instances of art and artists being referenced in films and TV. Some examples are Rachel Rosenthal and David Hyde Pierce in ‘Frasier’; Jennie Garth and Jason Wiles in ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’; and a possible favourite is Chris Eigeman in ‘The Next Big Thing’. It’s a brilliantly terrible portrayal of an artist and seems to perpetuate the notion that if you’re an honest, hard-working painter who just can’t break into the art world, it’s probably because you’re a boring person. It seems like people want their artists to suffer. The stereotype made famous by Van Gogh, and beaten to death by the media ever since, is basically the entire ethos in the premise of the film. Gus Bishop (Chris Eigeman) is a struggling artist who pays the bills doing clerical work of an unspecified nature. His generically pleasant paintings would feel at home in a hospital waiting room, and like most of us who pass such artworks en route to getting our flu shots, the art world doesn’t even notice them.

Things change when a petty thief named breaks into Gus’s apartment and steals one of his canvases. He pawns it off on his landlord with a made-up back-story about the mysterious and reclusive artist, a drug addict and incest survivor who also served in Vietnam. The landlord then sells it to his friend’s daughter’s gallery, adding that the artists family was killed by a tornado that ripped through his trailer park, and literally overnight, the art world is buzzing with intrigue. This ‘artist’s past’ thing is still something that is responsible for a work being recognised as ‘good’ or ‘important’ and so this layering of narratives and histories onto this one work doesn’t make it good film but it’s an interesting idea none the less. It’s become like an intentional Chinese whispers where no one knows what’s ‘true’ and what’s ‘false’ anymore.

To return to the story, the thief entangles Gus in a ‘get rich quick’ (which is a nice link to the Scaffold exhib’) scheme to sell more of his paintings under this false identity, convincing him that he doesn’t have what it takes to make it in the art world by himself. He does this by saying ‘you’re not gay, you’re not a junkie, you don’t paint with your teeth. You’re a middle-class white kid from New Brunswick, New Jersey – zero sex appeal.’ Pretty bizarre considering all we seem to hear about is that all artists are white middle class men – he seems to be the ideal candidate! But anyway, the scam works, and the thief positions himself as the artist’s exclusive representative, handling all of his business transactions with galleries and the press so no one ever sees him. We have no idea why people think artists have reps but this could be a potential area to go down – appoint a representative for us or maybe even make one up by using the descriptions from the film. We think that we’re meant to be rooting for Gus through all of this – he just wants to make a living from his art, and it seems the only way to do that is by working the system. But there is nothing to like about him because he is so boring (as the plot requires). He is as humuorless as his art, neither of which makes for compelling cinema. Having once been rejected by the art world, he is a reluctant ‘everyman.’ Looking in from the outside, he condemns it for its duplicity and pretentiousness, jealous of his own alter-ego, and uses this to justify his crime. After his colossal success, Gus finally gets fed up with his role in a corrupt system and exposes himself as a fraud. By doing so, he also reveals the hypocrisy of the art world that fell for his deception. Nearly every art world character in the film is a clown, carrying on melodramatically with an air of silly entitlement. Turtleneck-wearing arts administrators throw around meaningless artspeak in a boardroom. Some favourites are ‘He’s an anti-positivist!’ or ‘He’s a trans-realist!’. All said while catty dealers and collectors trip over themselves trying to get their piece of the glory. The exception is an art critic whom Gus falls in love with because she writes glowing reviews of his work (and she’s pretty).

The film wants to operate as a cultural commentary (before deciding to become a rom-com right at the end). But it’s too unambiguous in its moral position to hold any real depth or complexity, and the cringe-worthy performances make light of any serious critique it might offer. It made us wonder whom the audience for such a film might be when all that’s left is a string of obvious goofs and gaffs about an easy target that’s too specialised to attract mainstream interest. So perhaps that’s where the art happens? It’s not at the inception of the work, but it’s receival. It’s what happens beyond the parameters of the screen. Stuff that might happen if these events actually occurred in the world we live in or perhaps after the film has finished. The work could possibly manifest itself as a conversation/interview between us and all the people in these sorts of films who ask if the wannabe artist is ‘gonna get a job doing paintings once school’s done?’ to quote ‘Art School Confidential’. We’ll do some more thinking about this over the next couple of weeks. 

h o w m a n y a r t s c a n y o u c o u n

In search is a Christmas-y holiday we found ourselves in Stockholm this week and had the pleasure of visiting a couple of their galleries, one a small commercial space and the other one of the biggest public art museums. Loyal had an exhibition titled ‘Toys “r” Us by Louise Enhöring. The show consisted of 5 or 6 close up photographs of children’s toys, a fairly simple premise but the images themselves were aesthetically interesting/thought provoking. There was the whole guessing game happening inside your head, attempting to piece together a puzzle when you’ve only been given half the pieces. However, the work was more about the idea of this synthetic adult world we’ve created for children; tiny cars, tiny ovens, even tiny people. This seemed fairly reasonable, if not slightly cliché. We couldn’t shake the feeling that actually they were just nice looking photographs that they hoped would sell. Not that that’s a crime, they sure would look nice about the mantel piece where great aunt Ruth’s urn sits (RIP-in-peace), but perhaps a bit more could’ve been done to support the thinking behind it. 

Our next stop was Moderna Musset, similar to Tate in London with regards to its size, content and the fact that it’s publicly funded. We took a look round the permanent collection which is always fun in any big art museum; getting a glimpse of the classic including perhaps 30 works by Marcel Duchamp. Another great aspect of this was that, again similar to Tate Britain, their collection goes through different time periods and consequently different movements in art history. We definitely find this process of reflection and hindsight hugely beneficial; the lineage of art is something that comes into our practice and general research fairly frequently. They also had a special exhibition on titled ‘THE NEW HUMAN’. It was exploring our human condition in a fast-changing world. How do we perceive and understand ourselves? How do we live, socialise, organise and control each other? And what kind of future awaits us? These are all the sorts of questions that appeared to be being thrown out there at the same time as offering insights into a global war-zone of religious fanaticism and political extremism but also highlight examples of solidarity and compassion. As we watched each film the content seemed to oscillate between the hysterically absurd and the deeply serious, almost as if it was like a metaphor for mankind skirting the borderline between ultimate disaster and the emergence of something new (which really summarises the whole show). It was a superb line up of artists including some favourites including Ed Atkins, Harun Farocki, Frances Stark, Hito Steyerl, Superflex and Ryan Trecartin. The Superflex film was not one we were aware of and was certainly in the top of our list. It was called ‘The Financial Crisis (Session I-IV)’ and it’s all about the financial crisis and meltdown from a therapeutic perspective. A hypnotist guides you through your worst nightmares to reveal the crisis without as the psychosis within. During 4 sessions you experience the fascination of speculation and power, too fear, anxieties and frustration of loosing control, economic loss and personal disaster. In Session 1 "The Invisible Hand" you’re introduced to the backbone of capitalism, the idea of the 'invisible hand' as the benign faith in self-regulation that prevents markets and people from spinning out of economic control. Under hypnosis you are asked to interrogate that faith and to imagine a world no longer governed by the invisible hand. In the following Sessions we go deeper and deeper into the financial crisis. A truly thorough work and one that was genuinely thought-provoking but without being didactic in its delivery.

We’ve also got round to tweaking The SketchUp Residency website so go check that out >>>here<<< if you have a second and read the press release for Bob Bicknell-Knight’s work. Also if you’re interested in taking part them please do email us for more information, the next open call will be published soon! Something else that’s now up is our interview in Art Reveal magazine so head over >>>there<<< and give it a read.

a r t a b o u t a r t

So the launch of The SketchUp Residency went well! We’re still attempting to iron out some issues with the model but the site is up and running! We’re also in the process of writing a press release that goes with the work on display. We’ve also sent off our answers to our interview that will be published in Art Reveal’s next issue so will post a link to it when it’s out.

Another episode of Artists and Friends has been recorded and will be up by the end of the evening so head over to that area of the world wide web to hear our thoughts on the Carroll Fletcher show ‘Looking at one thing and thinking of something else: An Exhibition in Four Parts, Part 2: Observations’ and the Evan Roth talk that went with it. We also recommend going to see Martin Creed’s ‘Work 409’ in the lift at the South Bank Centre and deliberate over some of the works in the pop up show by Hayward Gallery titled ‘The Infinite Mix’.

Some new research we’re embarking onto is that of fictional artists. This is a slightly different idea to that of William Cost or Millicent Place since we have not invented these artists; Gilda Dent is a good example of this. For those of you who don’t know, Gilda Dent, occasionally referred to as Grace instead of Gilda, is a fictional character that has appeared in Batman comic books. Associated with her fiancé (later husband) Harvey Dent, who becomes the criminal mastermind Two-Face, she has since been a recurring character throughout various Batman stories involving Two-Face. In her first appearance, Gilda is the fiancée of Harvey Dent the brilliant and handsome district attorney of Gotham City. Gangster Boss Maroni throws acid in Harvey's face during Maroni's trial, scarring half of his face and consequently warping his mind. (Now this is where our interest beyond that of the narrative lies); because Gilda is a sculptor, Harvey believes that she worships beauty; therefore (in Dent's mind), neither she – nor anyone else – could ever love or accept a person with such a monstrously ‘hideous’ face as his. Gilda creates a bust of Harvey, which he smashes with a mallet to symbolise his new, ruined self. Even as Two-Face begins a dual career of crime and Robin Hood-style philanthropy, however, he still longs passionately for Gilda, and she for him. So here we have what appears to be a somewhat mild character, with respect to others that surround her, yet she has a huge effect on the entire storyline. This has conceptual ties to other works we’ve produced that explore how art and artists are represented through popular culture. Bob Kane and Bill Finger (the creator of Batman) have decided that art is something which is aesthetically pleasing and conforms to traditional notions of beauty. This is not so bizarre since quite a large percentage of people definitely think this way. However, Kane and Finger have created this character which fulfils the stereotype, which I think we can all agree is a step up from just thinking something in ones head. This is a particularly interesting example due to her significance to the story – Gilda being this symbol of Harvey’s insanity due to her affiliation with the art world; it’s because she’s an artist that he doesn’t think she’ll love him despite his deformed face, maybe if she’d been a musician it wouldn’t have been so bad. We’re not sure how this will pan out into a work (or works) but it’s just some research we’ve been mulling over...

o u t t h e o t h e r s i d e

So we managed to survive our relatively hectic couple of weeks with 9 exhibitions in total and it turned out to be pretty fun after all *winking emoji face*

For the 3D/XD open studios at CSM we took a similar approach to that which we had with the 2D/4D with regards to both its site specificity and inconspicuousness. We decided to place a number of fictional ‘lost art’ posters (pictured below) the week before the opening and leave them up for the duration. We wanted them up for a certain amount of time so that there might have been some discrepancy with reference to whether or not people perceived the posters to be ‘art’. Students who had seen them for 7 days may have come accustomed to seeing them and therefore not give them a second look but someone who they’ve invited might instead point them out and a dialogue arises. Another similarity to the 2D/4D show is that it’s hard to get away from the obviousness of it being art due to it being within the walls of an art school but this work seemed to be slightly more effective in that sense due to its ‘slap-dash’ appearance; stuck to the wall with masking tape and (seemingly) without any consideration for design. However, what may appear to be something that took only a few seconds to knock up on a laptop was slightly more thought out. The arrangement is taken from the visual language of lost cat/dog/pet posters in an attempt to personify art as this ‘thing’ that is alive and has a beating heart. The image is blurred and appears to be of an entire studio as opposed to just one work, making identifying it impossible even if it was clear. The photo is one of Kazimir Malevich in his studio but we colourised and blurred it using Photoshop. This image has been chosen due to the nature of his practice; Malevich is considered by many (including himself) as the embodiment of the movement into pure abstraction. Moving away from the real and creating paintings that instead depict something ‘other’ or something that has been invented from ones imagination. This reflects what we’re playing with when creating this work; the artwork in the image is imaginary and therefore is our own interpretation of what Malevich was trying to do. The text, which describes the work, is nonsensical – there’s plenty of content but none of it would be helpful when physically identifying something. It speaks of the ideas behind the work, none of which are translated into material attributes. This is a work about transparency, usually what is on display is the piece itself and perhaps the meaning would be lost, here the intention behind the work is out for everyone to read. The absence of it causes a reaction in the reader, they then make their own mind up about what the work may or may not be and so they become active viewers and a part of the piece. We also attributed it to William Cost and some people are aware of who this is and therefore is a slight hint to those who might be slightly better informed about our previous work.

On Monday we were a part of a project called ‘Destroy’ which is in association with Bow Arts and was instigated by artist Poppy Green. Students are invited to destroy a piece of art and then use the materials to make their own work. The work we put forward was ‘is here alright?’ which is the collection of boxes and crates that look like they might contain art. We felt this took the ideas that went into making the piece about mystery and the unknown and (quite literally) smashed them up and we were very excited! The students involved we actually very insightful about the work and about art in general, asking pretty big questions that I’m positive continue to trouble most of the population. It was a great experience to see how their minds work when faced with something quite abstract and concept heavy. Working with younger people is always informative but can definitely be vary in difficulty; it was obvious that these particular students were on the edge of being overly conscious about what they said and how they acted. They still didn’t really care about what the rest of the group thought of them; disagreeing with each other and speaking their mind. A very positive day.

Another show we had this week was ‘Pack it in’, held at Vent in Hoxton. For this we also produced a new work where we produced a life size cut out and faced it into the corner of the room. These are usually seen in the cinema where you get to see your favourite heroes and villains up close or in supermarkets where the classic smiley family is promoting a variety of products. This work has links to our mild obsession to stock imagery. We tend to this of our ideas and then how those things are going to manifest and even if we think ‘you know what I really fancy making a Sid and Jim hammock but I don’t really know why’ we’ll have a look into what a hammock is about and how we could potentially turn that into an interesting work. The main point is that it’s our ideas that we value most, over the product. To return the stock images; they aren’t images of real things; they are images of the idea of what those things are. So what’s being depicted is not how it happens in the real world, it’s just a shadow that sort of mimics something we might find familiar. So the people who have cardboard cutouts made of them aren’t real people, they’re characters and so is ours. The cutout is of William Cost (he’s been busy this week) and the side facing the wall is consequently blank to reflect both his potential and nonexistence. This is another work that is using certain visual cues to poke at an audience’s memory and try and get them to think, posing questions and opposed to answers.

Some new to announcements are that ‘One Man’s Art…’ is going to be in Average Art magazine’s new issue ‘What is Art?’. We’re also doing an interview with Art Reveal magazine which is very exciting! Tomorrow is going to be the launch of The SketchUp Residency website so head to www.thesketchupresidency.com to see the product of Bob Bicknell-Knight’s term.

Finally we just wanted to apologise for the lack of Artists and Friends content the past couple of weeks – we’ve just been so so busy with other stuff but we’ve got something cooking up to stay tuned…

l e a r n i n g b y d o i n g

It’s been a busy couple of weeks and is continuing into the beginning of the next. We managed to partake in 4 exhibitions last week, another 4 this week and then another project on Monday. A theme that we’ve been considering for quite some time is gallery objects and works that encompass which intern might cause questions of all things being of artistic merit. The exhibition being discussed is part of a series of 48-hour shows, meaning that the artists have 48 hours to from receiving the brief to the private view. The title was ‘fire and light’ and so thinking about what we’ve previously just mentioned we thought that for our work that we would purchase the light bulbs to be used in the space for the show. Again, the basis of this stems from research into essential homogenous objects of the gallery set-up. Characteristics of the space also include the white walls of the gallery, the nails used to hang work and even the front desk. These unsung heroes of the white cube facilitate the viewing of art objects and subsequently the conversation that arises from them. None of this can happen without these utilitarian objects that often go unnoticed, primarily due to their domesticity. Instead of artists we then become facilitators; enabling the other work in the show to be seen but also/hopefully getting the audience to look a little closer. It’s articles with headlines like ‘man drops phone in Tate Modern and visitors think it’s art’ which bring give this idea some of its body. The notion of the white cube is crucial to the art world so looking into it is something we thoroughly enjoy. Having to search for the art is another facet of this; proposing questions or scenarios is more of our aim than solutions or explanations. We like the idea that the audience has to work a bit. In line with this ‘facilitator’ role the there was also a certificate made to let visitors know that we were the ‘Patrons of Light’. Below are some photos the light in action.

We also had isthisit ‘AFK’ which was a great success! A huge number of people came and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. However, our work in the show seemed slightly out of place against all the dazzling moving imagery and kitschy objects. Not that we believed our piece to be better or worse than those on show but due to the time based nature of so many of the other works, ours was very quickly dismissed. Again, this is in no way a comment on any being superior but just a reflection on the type of exhibition that it was. ‘Touch Me Baby’ (the show where the audience was allowed to physically interact with the work) gathered a huge crowd which is always a plus but due to the high number of people in the exhibition the piece had to be edited slightly meaning the throwing line was closer and the paper had to be kept in its packaging. All fair compromises to have the work shown to such a large number of people.

The piece we had in the 2D/4D Open Studios was exactly what we wanted it to be; very inconspicuous but not completely invisible by any stretch. It was entertaining to watch some people were looking at it gingerly like a puppy sniffing around a dead rabbit; wanting to pick it up but not sure if it was safe to do so. Having it as a permanent installation would be amusing but due to the nature of CSM being an art school it would probably be unveiled fairly quickly. Other places where there is the possibility for art and less potential for suspicion would be good, even if it were only as far Kings Cross Station.

For another show at CSM, this one occurs in the main street, called 'BIG SPACE' we were forced, due to a late Amazon order, to produce a slightly different iteration of the work ’12 Angry Men’, where we make name tags for the twelve apostles from the New Testament. The nametags did not arrive on time and therefore we had a piece of paper with all their names in a grid and a big ‘SIGN IN HERE’ sign with a pen. Included in the grid was also their dietary requirements and what time they all arrived. This combines the original idea (the one we had right at the beginning of the production process) which was to have a table and then place mats for where they were supposed to sit, and the idea we eventually landed on which was to have name tags. All in all it wasn’t so bad the package arrived late! We’ll post some updates on the other projects we’re working on next week!

s o m e o l d s o m e n e w

We’ve got a few more works that are in shows this week, some new some old. ‘Touch Me Baby’ is a one night only exhibition where guests will be invited to freely interact with all artwork on show, without fear of alarms or getting told off for standing too close. It feels like an interesting idea that by allowing physical interaction, they hopes to integrate the art and public in a far more intimate way, dissolving any feelings of alienation or intimidation previously separating the two. The show will also reverse the role of the artist and viewer, as each artwork will evolve into new, unforeseen forms throughout the evening, dictated by the hand of the public. The work we are choosing to exhibit therefore is ‘You need to have some fun’; a physical rendition of the App ‘Paper Toss’.

We’re also developing a new work for the 2D/4D open studios, which comes in the form of a leaflet. The leaflets are inconspicuously placed in a clear plastic dispenser and visitors will be allowed to take them. The content of the leaflet is advert-style/sale pitch of a new commissioned artwork for the front of CSM, one that would replace the iconic array of colored fountains. We have used language from that of an estate agent to create appealing sentences without actually saying what the work will be. The work is then put to the reader to think about the possibilities of the space presented to them. Art can be sold and traded like any other commodity and sometimes it becomes far less about what’s being made and more about who’s making it. Therefore we’ve used the artist persona we’ve recently used, Millie Place, to act as the one making the new work. Fiction plays a big part of our practice and twisting the current world into something that resembles its former self but causes a second glance is an aim for the things we construct.

d r u m r o l l p l e a s e

Our printed canvas for the isthisit show ‘AFK’ has arrived! It looks so much better than we ever thought it would considering it didn’t cost a huge amount and didn’t really feel like it a service used for much more than printing your dogs face onto a stretcher. None the less is does exactly what we wanted it to do! The materiality has all these echoes of cheesy motivational posters you would see around an office building and at the same time the imagery reflects that of the stock market or some other graph related facts. So the work itself is complete and just needs to be transported to south London by next week!

Speaking of isthisit, we have announced our first resident of The SketchUp Residency which will be Bob Bicknell-Knight (who’s website can be found >>>here<<<). He will be making work for the three artificial islands off the coast of Dubai known as Palm Islands. These strictures are quite phenomenal, visually but also politically in how they are received by media and public alike. We’re looking forward to seeing the work that unfolds and you can keep up to date with Bob’s research via The SketchUp Residency Instagram! We’ll be doing an open call for the next section of the residency so keep yah eyes n ears peeled for that one.

There is also another new episode of our podcast ‘Artists and Friends’ which can be heard >>>here<<<. We're talking about an online, moving image curatorial project called DVD is Dead and a particular set of works by Karl Sims. Instaminiseries, which is a string of 15-second films published via Instagram and talk by Jesse Darling that she gave at our Uni. Hope you enjoy!

We decided (regretfully) to go to an opening of a group show at Kate MacGarry last night. The work absolutely reeked of unintentional decision-making and clumsy metaphors about space as a material. Fortunately there was wine and good conversation but the art was not on form on this occasion which was a shame since just this year there’s been great shows including some artists such as Haroon Mirza and John smith.

A news-y style bit is that we got our film ‘Anything I Can do is Not Art Because I’m Not an Artist’ into The Bomb Factory Film Festival which supposedly had over 500 submissions so it’s fun to know they enjoyed our film so much. And recently we found a dolls house which had a picture of a cactus hanging in one of the rooms so we took it home and we’re going to start another curatorial project called ‘The Doll’s House Gallery’ or something to that effect. We’ll have an open call and then artist would have to send the work to us, meaning that the components of the work would have to be able to fit through a letterbox. We would then take install shots of all the teeny tiny art and have the gallery open by appointment. We’ll see how it goes and keep you posted!

a s m a l l v i c t o r y

Our exhibition at Bones and Pearl was a definite success! Everyone we spoke to at the opening and then at the performance night seemed to really enjoy themselves and thought the work we showed had uniting themes without being repetitive. The staggered performances throughout the night meant that people who attended stayed and so at the end of the first night there was a huge number of people. We also ended up showing two works, the first being ‘is here alright?’, and then also ‘where are they now?’. We were really happy that we finally got to show it as a physical installation/sculpture as opposed to just the sound aspect. Another additional aspect of the show was the destruction of our piece ‘is here alright?’; we had previously made a film of us destroying the original but had never done anything with it and since everyone else in the show was doing a variety of performative works, it felt appropriate to re-enact this here. We invited others from the crowd to participate in the deconstruction, which we hoped would spur on others from the crowd into joining in. However, due to the nature of the evening we think that because everything was seen as a performance that people didn’t’ want to mess up the art that was happening in front of them. Just something to think about for next time.

Will and Billy’s performance was particularly funny; they staged a barbecue wearing aprons emblazoned with the phrases ‘real men don’t use recipes’ and ‘license to grill’. They continued these faux-macho personas onto the actually cooking itself; they proceeded to cook the burgers until they were burnt to a crisp and then went about putting them into buns anyway! An insightful yet funny critique of British masculinity.

We’re now preparing for the isthisitisthisit exhibition titled ‘AFK’. The central theme of the exhibition, made clear though the exhibition’s title (an acronym for ‘away from keyboard’), is the internet but in a physical sense. How the digital world interacts with the physical world and vice versa. Our piece is every recorded work by Cézanne made more ‘digestible’ through mutating them from beautiful masterpieces into data. People strive for the ease to assess a concept instantly, sourcing tools such a charts and graphs. Art, on the other hand, tends to go against the grain with reference to this idea, as something that is stereotypically pondered over and deeply considered during production and consumption. Using Photoshop we have reduced every painting by Cézanne down to a single pixel/colour. The colours are then put into an online and interactive Pantone Matching System (PMS) colour chart which, when given a colour, will suggest similar Pantone colours. By using Pantone colours we’re referencing the mass production and ‘fast-food’ culture. The PMS also provides a corresponding number to the colour. This number is then put into a graph containing all the other numbers generated, in turn producing a line graph consisting of the entire works of a particular artist – available at a glance, at ease. We’re still toying with a name for the work but have a potential in ‘line of best fit’; it’s exactly what you were instructed to find in school when creating such structures and goes along with the idea that you’re saving time and attempting to box something up into one category as opposed to allowing people think for themselves.

The newest episode of artists and friends is out on soundcloud so give it a listen >>>here<<< if your ears have got some time to spare! We’ve been pretty busy at the moment but hopefully we’ll have another episode up by the end of next week.

t h e a r t s u p e r m a r k e t

Some fun news; been invited to take part in another exhibition hosted by Scaffold Gallery in Manchester. The title is ‘How To Get Rich Quick’, and each artist is invited to make a piece of work in response to one of the ways to get rich that they have compiled into a list.

We’ve finally decided on our work we’re going to exhibit in the show with everyone from CSM. We’re going to re-make ‘is here alright?’ (but bigger and better than before). This is a work where there are a selection of art-shaped packages that look as if they’ve just been dropped off in preparation for an exhibition but are yet to be unwrapped. The work could therefore be anything that could fit into the packages. Little do the audience know they are merely empty or full of nothing more than rubbish. Along with the parcels is a delivery note to ‘William T Cost’ our designated fake artist that we use on occasions such as these. An additional aspect of this is that half way through the opening, we are going to tear open the boxes to reveal that in fact nothing lies inside. The debris will then be left for the remainder of the show.

An idea we’ve been considering recently is this notion of the snow-globe. We’ve always been interested in the notion of the souvenir and especially the snow-globe since it continues to be applicable no matter if it’s for a family holiday to Paris or a drunken, STI infused trip to Kavos. An object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it describes everything, which is why the idea of a souvenir is so intriguing because it’s actively doing this. However, a souvenir tends to be an object that is collected or purchased and transported home by a traveler as a memento of a visit. The object itself may have intrinsic value, or simply be a symbol of past experience. Without the owner's input, the symbolic meaning is invisible and cannot be articulated. We could create our own places and our own memories and insert them into this world. Making memories that would otherwise not exist.

Another idea for a work relates to the 1985 film ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’. The basic story is that a New Jersey housewife spices up her boring life by reading personal ads, especially a series of them being placed by a mysterious denizen of New York City named Susan (who is played by Madonna). The two main characters are polar opposites, one a quiet housewife, the other a free-spirited man-eater. They end up swapping places after a bump on the head causes memory loss in the former. But the defining factor causing them to re-arrange their identities is this amazing jacket that Susan wears. The jacket becomes a character in its own right and is from then on is this symbol of identity and a metaphor for the idea that we’re all assuming different identities all the time. The André Berthiaume quote ‘We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin’ is something else which relates strongly to this idea about character (or lack of). So the idea was to have this jacket slung over the back of a chair, or on a coat hook in a gallery, almost going unnoticed but still being there as this embodiment of a shift in identity. And it is this shift which is important; no one has assumed it therefor it is still open and almost waiting for its next body.