Dedicated to critical cultural production at the intersection of art and activism.

Our friends at Half Letter Press will be contributing again to Michel Chevalier’s unlimited liability. Now in its third year, the project was labeled by Art Papers as the “art shop that won’t sell to the rich.”

Photo by Cornelia Sollfrank, Art Papers

Through this project, Chevalier offers a model for DIY cultural production that effectively guards against co-option:

This is done by a legal contract which stipulates that no purchaser may have more than 50,000 euros in assets, subject to penalty in case of false disclosure. The art-gallery world partition of audiences–those who merely “appropriate symbolically” on the one side, “real buyers” on the other–is thereby inverted. Those able to buy at “unlimited liability” belong to social groups excluded (due to their insufficient resources) from buying on the art market.

All sorts of multiples – stickers, DVDs, CDs, posters, zines, t-shirts, buttons, food, services, and works whose form is to be determined in the course of exchange with the purchaser – are all for sale by the artists.  A full list of the participants is on Chevalier’s website, as are directions to the Hamburg-based shop, open until September 13, 2009.

Discuss (0)

Christa Donner’s work will be on display at EveryBody!

Chicago’s I Space Gallery will host a retrospective of the visual culture of the United States Women’s Health Movement this September 11-October 10, 2009.  EveryBody!, curated by Bonnie Fortune, includes contemporary and historical works, beginning with posters, ephemera, and literature of the late 1960s-1970s.  The show will include presentations and performances by artists and activists working towards health care justice in the present day offering

creative responses to and representations of the issues surrounding the health needs of women, men, and transgendered people.

Opening night will include a performance by cyberfeminists subRosa, and other such allies as Just Seeds, the Library of Radiant Optimism/Let’s Re-make the World, the Pink Bloque, and Favianna Rodriguez.

Discuss (1)

Plates and Records at the opening of the India Street Mural Project

Ram Subramanian, Andrzej Nowicki, and Joann Kim founded Plates and Records this month with this simple request:

Guests are required to bring a plate, a record, an empty stomach, and a good mood.

The group, comprised of two artists and a human rights advocate, created a nomadic and themed monthly happening, happening first in Joann’s house, then at the opening of the India Street Mural Project in Brooklyn.

Barbecuing in front of Chris Stain’s mural

Plates and Records is not a potluck; instead, the chefs labor for free, charging only for the cost of the ingredients.  A more convivial way of arranging the necessities of our daily lives, this and other dinner clubs offer various models for DIY public gatherings, whether formally, as with the non-hierarchical Underground Food Collective, or spatially, as is the case with Plates and Records’ nomadism and use of public space.  Next up, foraging dinner clubs?

Discuss (0)

Radical American filmmaker Robert Kramer was celebrated in New York City with a retrospective of his work this week.

EcoLabs invited six artists to respond to the book “Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet” by Mark Lynas, and the results are available in a free download.

Picture the Homeless members strutted the catwalk during their land grab, and Eyebeam made pics from the College of Tactical Culture available to the admiring public.

Toronto’s Eric Cheung and Sean Martindale install gardens on poster boards, made from on-site materials, namely old ads. (via)

Sequelism Part 3: Possible, Probable, or Preferable Futures opened in Bristol, England, and Latitudes has installation shots.

Discuss (0)

Last month, Alina & Jeff Bliumis wrapped up Casual Conversations in Brooklyn, their “anthropological inquiry into Brooklyn’s immigrant communities,” which was met with critical acclaim.

Be Happy! (2009), Site-Specific Installation, Astroturf

Casual Conversations described the culture shock experienced by immigrants facing new social realities, and the desire to recreate one’s self in a new environment while maintaining a past cultural identity.

Outside of the gallery, the two formerly-Soviet artists erect Language Barriers (pictured at right) in public spaces to realize the impediments so common to the immigrant experience.  The sites are chosen for their historical import, and the temporary walls constructed from artist-made foam dictionaries that poke fun at American perceptions of immigrants.

Most recently, Alina & Jeff Bliumis participated in the No Longer Empty group show at the Chelsea Hotel, still viewable online, and the duo was added to rebel:art’s watchlist.

Detail from Cultural Tips For New Americans #7 (2009), Foam Dictionary

Discuss (0)