BETWEEN UTOPIA AND PRACTICE

Social exchange, sponsorship and materiality of an ideological apparatus

(Lack of “art” values) 

Resuming economic relations from prehistory when the values were not measured by money but through a system of Potlatch, that is, through an exchange of gifts as a surplus value, I came to an idea to establish my new project on it in 2000 called “Gifting”. ( http://www.gabrielavasic.com/projects/giffting.php and http://www.gabrielavasic.com/projects/darivanje.php

 

The course of Material culture on AAEN Cultural and Female studies, whose student I was at the time, initiated that idea. At the time the end of NATO bombing marked its anniversary, I've been receiving diverse gifts from friends, parents and people I hardly knew. Material help from friends abroad came in regularly. I wanted to make an exhibition out of it.

The very idea for such an exhibition where the main exhibits would be the Gifts, somehow coincided with the last flow of refugees and people who remained without any property, personal belongings and materialized memories. The theme was self-evident: “Gifts are a surplus value at my disposal”!

At moment my decision was to involve the audience to participate in art production and I launched the project “Gifting” in which I “recycled” my past and exhibited objects, which were gifted to me: books, catalogs, records, and personal things… Aside from these regular exhibits, in the extension of the gallery “Zvono”, the audience was invited (obliged) to participate bringing in their gifts. Also, they were encouraged to choose the especially designed registration coupons (sponsored by “Proline” company) with significant highlights from our civilization on them. Thus, through the Duchamps code key, the audience denoted the objects (gifts) giving them a status of exhibits. These objects-gifts along with the coupons were then mounted on the gallery walls. So, there once again, the Marcel Duchamps thesis was confirmed: “Artwork has no substance by itself”, that is, it owns its substance to another materiality, the materiality of an ideological apparatus”, in this case, the gallery's authority.

If the “ready made” is a proof of the reality of an illusion (lack of “art” values) then the ideological apparatus of the gallery is a material counterpart of the artist's authority.

And that's how I linked it with the next project within the gallery space: “Contr'act art: art 4 free?” in 2001.

I applied with a project “Labyrinth, a space installation which enabled me to enter the gallery term. Since I lived in the ages of limitations for art oriented people of my generation, I couldn't afford an annual income into an artwork which wouldn't be further distributed within the art system. The years of material crisis dealt with identity crisis as well. “ Am I an artist if I don't produce artworks or if I don't work in public? What meant to be an artist if ones basic life production is endangered?” were the questions that bothered me. Facing the production requests, the market limitations and reduced access to a few collectors of fine arts of young contemporary artists, the most of people not only in my generation, but generally, after schooling quit dealing with art. For me it was a mater of self responsibility and a decision which had to deal with the professional identity.

At that moment, when I faced inability to produce my ambient conceived work in the gallery space, I was pushed at the edge of frustration. Finally an elder artist D.A. whom I met on the street helped me to resolve my ideas making a project based on collective participation again. He reminded me on a poster of Croat conceptual artist Goran Trbuljak, - “The fact that the artist was given the possibility to exhibit in a gallery space is more important than what is going to be exposed on that exhibition” Galerija suvremene umetnosti, Zagreb, 1973 what framed the content of my selected expo ( http://www.gabrielavasic.com/projects/contract_art.php/ ).

I engaged the people I knew to produce the prints, Xerox or digital folia with an image of a “virtual atelier”, and a remake of Trbuljak poster; I brought gifts, printed notions dealing with art system, letters with a festival, names of sponsors form previous expo and offered a gallery to friends' musicians to perform. At the entrance of the gallery, two students of mine were collecting donors for my further art production. The money received at the entrance was three time less than I invested in the drinks and food at the vernisage of this event. Without traditionally perceived “art” values I produced an air of obligatory donations what served me to register the audience and gain collective participation for my art production. Tracing the visitors I learnt that one of the curators was there but it didn't effect any of my further engagement on his shows nor on any other organized by the curators stuff from the Museum of contemporary arts.

The project was placed in the official gallery of the artists' state association, SULUJ, in Belgrade , formed in the socialist era and which still exists through the inertia of the state apparatus, though the state has dissolved long time ago.

Going back into the art history

 

As for the production of a non commercial art , distribution of artistic and symbolic capital which participates in the cultural production, creates a relatively insignificant role in the economy, but important in the distribution of artists' power. On the other hand, exhibiting in public gallery spaces, art confirms the materiality of the ideological apparatus: “art owns its existence to the state, that is, there is no art outside of the state.” By introducing a toilet as an everyday object into the “holly ground” of the gallery, it seems that Duchamps wanted to draw our attention that not only a toilet is out of place in the gallery, but also the gallery in itself is out of place!

 

From the other side, the situation is that the presentation of the artwork in the gallery space, on the festivals, or in any other public space, demands production. It speaks that the budget, costs of production and fees are related with the ones that control the distribution of money: agencies, organizers, foundations, sponsors, donators, and ministries... It is a paradigmatic situation in which what will or will not be exhibited is crucially connected with the positions of power, either economic or political.

 

Giving up dealing with art, Duchamps saw as an act of liberating from the ideology of the material existence of the state apparatus. At the same time, it is giving up from a network of relations which unavoidably follow public exhibitions. By introducing objects into gallery spaces, the link between economy and art production is emphasized, and thus between the real and the symbolic power.

 

Therefore, the distribution of information and knowledge is linked with the power positioning and the consciousness control. What cannot be seen does not exist! The main question to me nowadays is: "How to exist on the art scene, remain autonomous and create art works without budgets, art system or industry…distribute information, share knowledge, post questions and frame visions? But, to be autonomous in art production led me to the creation of ephemeral art works, net projects, performances, activism, text, etc. and no artwork of permanent value.

Here again the thesis of non-substance in the artwork finds its place. The autonomy or independency in art production led me to the other stage of logic of transaction, interdependency with sponsors as co producers.

 

"Reclamocracy" in the service of networking

 

Launching the project BRANDCH SERVICE at Gallery '73 Belgrade in 2005 I have been dealing with marketing strategies and sponsorship. Institutionalizing the artist as a manager within the network of users-sponsors, I created a gallery as an advertising company.

Overtaking marketing strategies and utilizing alternative economy model based on mutual agreement among the participants enabled me to promote my profession as a brand. I framed the holly trinity of consumption: Brand-Design-Goods as replicates for aesthetic experience. Treating the visual branch as a brand, I used gallery as a marketing space. Relaying on audience/consumers consciousness, gallery became a free ad space for individual art&craft producers, organizations and firms. It became a space through a net of users that mutually exempt their rights on discounted services or products out of taxes and duties. BSN – Brandch Service Network offered exchange of services and goods of participants under the registered sponsors' discount rate. I engaged 15 different firms and cultural institutions from the city to provide a discount for the participants in the network which might have used the registered coupon within a month after the registration took part. Also, I exposed a video R U SUCESSFUL? and 7 mega business cards depicting myself in 7 different professions, stressing out the manually engaged occupations.

I found the model of marketing practice might control the audience and therefore, becomes a measure tool of the reception of an artwork, while bringing the audience into the project. The audience is not a passive consumer any more but an active user of the network. Registered in this way the audience is plugged in the transactional system launched by BS network.

 

Jelena Spajic, a video artist and an art historian wrote in the catalogue:

 

“The artist has rationalized a network (that you will further widen) an artwork that is not left in the gallery space, nor is being deposed in a storage or her studio, but pulsates with those coupons in your bag, pocket, anywhere. You are successful for you have become a collector!

 

The coupon is a crossing of avant-guard approach – art = life, Boyce's approach – art = capital, pop artistic – art = product fetishism (consumerism), and this is all linked in the artist's post modernistic kitchen: art = branding! And what is being branded today? The artist and the profession! “

 

Such kind of a control model could be the substitute for hardly measured Feed Back! That's an example how artist becomes a collector of information and a distributor of professional characteristics of visitors/users.

 

The project production was covered by> DPC-Digital printing center, City Secretary for culture Belgrade, Jugokoncert, DKC – Dvorana kulturnog Centra, Inart – advertising company, …and more, find out: http://www.gabrielavasic.com/projects/bsn_project.php

 

Gabriela Vasic, 2006