Joseph Beuys: Kunst=Kapital. http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/class_action/

With its title topic “art as gift”, Periferic 8 questions how values are created within the art world and how artworks are modeling economic systems. The question is obviously self-referential as well, since Periferic itself is an institution which seeks to create and gain value. The globalization of the art field, as manifested in the proliferation of international art biennials[1], follows the free-trade principle of global capitalism. On the contrary, such international art events that are organized in post-communist countries with rudimentary art markets can convert their local traditions of underground counter-cultures that are functioning completely independent from market principles into highly significant critical approaches to the economy of art.

The intriguing aspect of value creation is that it can be interpreted somewhere between market and institutional theory. In classical institutional theory[2] the question was how an everyday object becomes a work of art if it is placed within an art institution. As long as it was considered art, its value was not questioned. However, even if the borders of the art world cannot be drawn clearly, there is still a problem concerning how its inside is structured. The traditional distinction between high and low (popular) art[3] became highly ambiguous, context dependent and outdated when based on technical, thematic factors. Within the art world, art is a simple currency and there is nothing lofty about it. The everyday and subjective experience is that there is good art and bad art, there is mediocre, uninteresting, revolutionary, critical, engaged, superficial and fashionable art – a versatility of value assignment rarely addressed by art theory. There are artists who are invited to much more and more prestigious exhibitions than others and there are galleries and institutions whose reputation is clearly much higher than that of smaller exhibition rooms in the countryside. Some curators are invited to organize huge international shows with lavish budgets, while others work for free out of enthusiasm, and others take jobs in half-dead museums.

This slippery quality, a kind of value association, a multi-dimensional hierarchy, stands between the de-contextualized aesthetic and market value. The three-fold, indirect correspondence between aesthetic quality, the above described fame – or reputation value, and commercial success was probably first measured by the Capital magazine’s Kunstkompass initiated by Willi Bongard. Since 1971 the magazine compiles yearly a list of the best 100 artists who are the ones who get the most points according to the exhibitions and purchase of their works in the most established western art institutions as well as the reviews on them in leading international art press. Online databases like artfacts.net can show as well that contemporary art has many successful trends whose success can be measured independently from auction prices. Artfacts.net assigns value to the activity of 127154 artists worldwide, according to the international art institutions (collections, galleries) they are affiliated with and the exhibitions they participate in.

Why Did The K Foundation Burn A Million Quid? http://www.libraryofmu.org/display-resource.php?id=398

This approach is much more democratic than that of Kunstkompass, but the importance of institutional critique, personal international network, and collaborations stay invisible in this system.

The special thing about the economy of art is that it is a self conscious economy in which producers can initiate reforms and criticism. This gives the whole art world the possibility to rely on market economy, and simultaneously defy and undermine it. To say yes and no at the same time. Saying no, burning[4] or giving away[5] money and valuables, defying or inflating – for instance with multiples – the merchandisable artifact of special value is surely an indispensable and sometimes overlapping part of the art world as the “yes” of museum gift shops.

The author receives Ernő Kállai Grant from the Hungarian Ministry of Education and Culture.

Links to related posts:

Interview with Marek Claassen

Zsuzsa Laszlo: How do you define the role of artfacts.net within the art world?

Andy Warhol https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/download/attachments/19980/warhol3.jpg

Marek Claassen: We introduced a quantitative method to measure how much an artist is embedded in the international art world. We start with long term relationships between artists and galleries or collections that represent them. These are very strong commitments that last very long. We count the number of countries and the number of collections and galleries. And then we look at solo and group shows. The more international artists a gallery or a museum has, the more its exhibitions value. Let’s say that we have an institution like Tate Modern where thousands of artists are collected. If you have a solo show there you get all the points from these artists and your rank will go up extremely. Biennials, group shows work like collections, their value is based on the artists whose works they show. So if there’s an Andy Warhol its value goes up a lot.

ZSL: Is this the secret of success? Do curators have to place works by Andy Warhol and other very famous artists next to the ones they would like to promote? Can these strategic exhibitions create real recognition revealing the true mechanism of the art world or do they just momentarily deceive the system?

MC: You can play the same tricks with google: by mixing famous and unknown names you can attract attention. We are in a time where there is so much information everywhere that you have to orientate yourself somehow. So even if it’s a minor work, if Andy Warhol is related somehow to the subject of the exhibition it means that many people can relate to it too.

ZSL: Can you also monitor the significance of artist run spaces, residency programs or street art?

Banksy-copy in Iasi. Photo: Zsuzsa László

MC: We have to make hard compromises. If we had more employees, we could go deeper, and have millions of items creating a clearer picture of the peripheries of the art world. Another factor is that we only register places that are completely dedicated to art. So we don’t include exhibitions in bank branches or restaurants in our system. Banksy for instance is right now ranked only 9913 although he is very famous and I like him a lot. But he only has 15 exhibitions, which shows that he is not so much appreciated among established curators.
We introduced major changes in last autumn because we received many calls and emails from smaller galleries and artists exhibiting in biennials. Now we give bigger weight to curated shows without a collection. We will fine-tune the system now and then. It is related to the number of data we have. When we started we only had 20 000 exhibitions whereas now 130 000 are in our system. We get more and more embedded in the art world so we can get better feedback and we can reflect on it. In the end, it is only a mathematical description of the art world.

ZSL: However globalized the art world is, I think it is still a utopia – though a very ambitious and heroic one – to represent the whole world, everything what is happening in contemporary art.

MC: Our ranking is something that is good to know about, but it is not to be followed blindly. Another aspect is that anyone can have an influence on the system and can change the picture. A new feature of ours is that you can submit data. The computer is not a snob, does not know what’s Tate Modern and does not have prejudice for a gallery in Africa, so the machine handles everything the same way. That is why artfacts.net is an argument. 20 000 people are using artfacts.net over 200 times a week, many professionals look at it, many art fairs use our data.

ZSL: So artfacts.net could help professionals to see how a certain exhibition or biennial can affect artists’ carriers. What could be even more interesting is to see how and according to what factors the “value” of galleries and biennials is changing. How are the centers and peripheries of the art world evolving and disappearing?

MC: Biennials function in our system like collections, they receive their value from the participating artists. Venice Biennial values so much because the artists chosen by the countries are usually already well-known. Rank is only based on the number of points. Probably it is more interesting to look at the rising factor: how much someone’s rank changes.
Biennials often present emerging artists. In the case of the 2005 Beijing Biennial there was no selecting committee, in the communist fashion organizers wrote to the artist associations in each country to send one artist. They sent artists who were best represented in these associations but not best from a curatorial point of view. Many such artists appear only once in artfacts.net because they are teachers or interior designers but after one such show they don’t do anything again on this level.

ZSL: I think it’s not only about the level of their activity. It is a new phenomenon that curators tend to involve in their shows: not only artists, but curators or professionals from other fields. These participants, of course, won’t be collected or represented by galleries. Artists also often do curatorial work which affects greatly their carriers but that would be difficult to include in such a system. Manifesta 7 is a very good example for all these situations where curators and participants seem interchangeable in several cases.

MC: There’s a similar discrepancy between the auction prices and our ranking. An Asian art magazine asked us to do a ranking for Asian artists. Artprice.com was invited as well, but they only had Chinese painters in their system, while our ranking started with Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, mainly installation and fluxus artists. 80% of the private collectors want oil paintings but many of these artists vanish because they are not accepted in the curatorial environment. There’s a big hype for Chinese paintings, people spend millions on it, but it is just design. Artfacts.net reflects the curator’s point of view. However, if we go deeper down in the art world to smaller galleries and less established artists who may still be very important regionally, it gets blurred.

ZSL: Yes, it is surly blurred in Eastern Europe. Is it because this region is not communicating well enough or because regional significance is very different from the international one?

MC: First we focused on our member galleries (who pay for their membership) because we have to have money from somewhere to be able to pay our employees, but then lots of people complained saying that you can’t do a valid ranking when you prefer the people paying you. So we stopped this, we only enter the data of our clients first, but then we process the others as well. However, we have to be careful because we are not only a program magazine, we build our ranking on these data. A show in our system can be seen like a hammer price in an auction. Nowadays maybe 5-10% of our data is mistaken, but we try to do our best, one day we find them (the mistakes). It is another question that in certain countries there is no functioning art world. Like in India, many artists can sell their works to collections, but don’t have shows.

ZSL: These artists usually only get famous abroad. It is true for Eastern Europe as well.

MC: In the art world you have to be a gypsy. There have always been centers in the art world: Rome, Paris, New York, maybe Berlin as well. So you have to go to such places. My opinion is that you are only professional, also as a curator or anyone in the art world, when you live from it, when you don’t have any other income.

No Photgraphy sign in Iasi
Photo: Zsuzsa László

ZSL: It is also so because “western” curators are always searching for new names, emerging artists unknown but still meaningful, for economic and commercial reasons, and also being aware of post-colonialist criticism. However, if you take an important international art magazine, almost all of the exhibition reviews are from Western Europe and North America so these non-Western artists only remain export specialties and cannot make an international reputation staying in their own cultural context. Proliferating biennials in Near- and Far-East probably will counter efficiently this bias while Eastern-Europe, Hungary for sure, is yet to find forceful strategies to be on the map of the international art world.

MC: It’s like in the sports world where clubs buy and sell players to be able go one league up. In the primary art market price can only go up. If an artist is not selling galleries do not lower the price, they drop the artist. There is only one way and this is up, if you don’t go up you are out. You can drive taxis, change profession, you are out of the system. I tell you this is why the art world is a big attraction to ruling nations with a huge middle class. 95% artworks sold are for 5000 dollars. The great majority is not buying Van Goghs or Richard Prince photographs of cowboys for a million dollars. The average lawyer and doctor buy art in their local galleries. And if a country doesn’t have middle class it has a zero chance to build up its artists. The basis, a big number of galleries is missing. It’s no good either when artists are subsidized by the government. You can see what happened in Holland: artists stop working, they have fix salaries and they don’t have to really care any more.

ZSL: Isn’t the situation different in the case of artists who don’t produce objects that can be easily included in the art market?

MC: Just look at Christo, his land art is unsaleable but he is still represented by 63 commercial galleries and 62 public collections. You have to make an artifact for your collector. A collector is like a lover, admirer. You have to give them something let it be a limited number of golden dvds, and they will appreciate it. They will lift you up, talk about you and invite all their friends to show them your work. You have to have artifacts, even in extreme cases like Banksy, they sell the walls of these houses. But if there is a dictator who thinks that certain art should be promoted it won’t work, whatever money is invested. In such countries the art world will die out.

ZSL: In Hungary and Romania curators are struggling a lot to get state money for projects that are not immediately compatible with the art market. At the same time in Western Europe and the US there are many state institutions and private funds that finance non-market art projects. In Venice Biennial or Manifesta huge amounts of state money are spent and the difference between various countries’ capacities is quite obvious. Collectors only come later, when artists get established.

MC: Still, you have to make sure you find collectors and you always have to go where your art is appreciated by private collectors. To do a state funded show is a kind of pedagogic approach. If your art is so good that it should leave a footstep in the history then you have to do networking to as many people as you can, to have many people who can carry your idea, otherwise it will become forgotten. There might be exceptions but statistically this is a way, and we have to face that your show will certainly have a bigger influence in New York than in Senegal. This is how the art world is functioning. If you do good, you should speak about it.

The author receives Ernő Kállai Grant from the Hungarian Ministry of Education and Culture.

An artist form Romania, 0 Euro artistic income (copyright: Andreja Kuluncic)

A Croatian artist, Andreja Kuluncic, made a series of public works in the bus-shelters of Frankfurt a Main in 2002 during the Manifesta 4 exhibition which portrays artist from various European countries (her fellow exhibitors in Manifesta 4), along with the average salary of the artist country of origin. We can also find out how much money the given artist is earning via his/her direct artistic conduct.

No surprise, the only artist who at least come close to the average salary of her region of from the Netherlands. But anyway, what would we expect for? Manifesta is a progressive, contemporary art world event, based round the main themes of social engagement and are heavily engaged into the institution network of emerging, young artist. Whatsoever, if you like my definition or not, it might be not easy to point out exactly what Manifesta is, but it is easy what is not: it is not a market oriented event for selling valuable merchandise in the form of oil-canvas paintings. Take a look on the webpage of the main event, and you will find out that more emphasis was put on social interaction, communication and immaterial works, which does not generate market value.

Andreja’s work also reflects to this issue: a workforce, – the artists – which does not earn it’s living from its artistic conduct, but evidently not because these people do art as ‘Sunday Painters’ or as a hobby, but because their capital can not be exchanged to monetary goods in a neo-liberal society. According to the numbers which we can find on Andreja’s works,  the product of these people’s creativity has no value on a market which mainly driven by galleries and art fairs. Of course, it might be true that later these young people will earn most of their income trough their art, but be honest, this presumes an audience who are open to accept the social engagement of the artist as labor, and compensate it, even the work does not have a clear physical manifestation.

Don’t forget to check out Andreja Kuluncic’s other works too!.

BMW art car

One might wonder if the complex network of social interactions and creative production we call art needs to to be measured on how much impact it might take. The Americans for Art association survey, titled Arts & Economic Prosperity III: The Economic Impact of Nonprofit Arts and Culture Organizations and Their Audiences might contain pretty large figures, and sentences like:  “Nationally, the nonprofit arts and culture industry generates $166.2 billion in economic activity every year”, but these figures tell a little on their own about the real power and magnitude of this field. A convenient question might be, if how does these figures relate to the national GDP?

In the comming days, Gregory Sholette will visit to Budapest after his participation in the Iasi Biennial, and during his seminar in the Tranzit Free Scchool of Theory and Practice , he will give a detailed presentation of his concept of contemorary art, economy and the notion of gifting, titled: Interventionist Art, Dark Matter, and the Rise of Enterprise Culture.  The event will be fully covered in this research blog. Stay tuned for the posts in the weekend.

He was raised in a middle class family and  started his career as grocery shop assistant, – just to later become a prominent manufacturer. Founded anonymously dozens of cultural institutions, including libraries, universities, and donated his collection of contemporary art works to the public, which nowadays serves as of the most prominent national collection of our times, named after him.

Who was he?

Some other texts I came by:
An excellent article by Ryan Griffis, the Gift(wrap)ing New Media (in an Authentic Chilkat Blanket) published in the Noema magazine. A very intelligent summary on the issues of networked culture, gift economy and contemporary art/activism, I would highly recommend to read it. Let me quote a small section of the text:

The problem, or rather my problem, is that this “gift economy” that exists in a fairly contained portion of a capital-based infrastructure is being rhetorically universalized. While I would usually respond, “What’s wrong with a universalized gift economy?”, it seems that this gift economy, though beneficial to many areas of independent research, production, and distribution, can also become a tool for marginalization and even suffocation of independent cultural forms.

I would also recommend to read the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessing, it is available to download from the website. An interesting reading, indeed.

And again, if you missed the Subsol index arcicles, take your time and read trough some of them.

I have stumbled upon this website – The Foundation for P2P Alternatives – during my research, maybe it might add something to the issue of gift-economy and peer-to-peer based exchange of intellectual properties.

The articles The Peer To Peer Manifesto: The Emergence of P2P Civilization and Political Economy and the P2P Economic Potential As An Alternative Production Approach are both interesting articles by Michel Bauwens, who is the co creator of the documentary movie Technocalyps, which I also recommend to watch if you manage to get a copy (torrent?).

Free Culture Game

Free Culture Game offers a ludic metaphor for the battle between copyright encroachments and the free exchange of knowledge, ideas and art. A circular field represents The Common, where knowledge can be freely shared and created; your job is to maintain a healthy ecology of yellow idea-bubbles bouncing from person to person before they can be sucked into the dark outer ring representing the forces of The Market. (via Rhizome.org)

Molleindustria, the radical game developer group did a “playable theory” work, which like many of their other games, may be played for an infinite, (update:actually this might be won, yet I never could). This near infinity of the “theory” has its purpose, as the battle for free knowledge and the market has a long history, and will have a future indeed, I am sure. The “theory” is quite straightforward, and one might say, and rather pessimistic, as there is no escape from the diabolical circle of market-free economy of knowledge. Anyway, can’t say it better, then this software application does.

If you have not met with the groups works, check out their website for their art pieces like the McDonalds Videogame.

An art donor, Iron Man

Yesterday I had the chance to see the action hero flick Iron Man (2008), in which Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), the young prodigal son, who owns an entire weapon manufacture company, faces the dire consequences of his ignorance on who and why for is using his merchandise of death, and decides to undo all evil by himself. He dresses in a super-armor and making the world a better place  by eliminating the bad guys personally. Yet, in the beginning of the movie, Stark is portrayed as a flamboyant playboy and inventor with a wide selection of interest, who when asked if he resembles Leonardo Da Vinci, states that he is not painting, but “basically, yes“.

At the very moment Tony Stark realizes how awful the world is, and how much pain he caused with his business conduct, and even trough he got injured in his first mission to save earth, he summons his charming secretary and right hand Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and express his will to continue on to make the world a better place as a superhero:

Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts: Tony, you know that I would help you with anything, but I cannot help you if you’re going to start all this again.
Tony Stark: There is nothing except this. There’s no art opening, no charity, nothing to sign. There’s the next mission, and nothing else.
Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts: Is that so? Well, then I quit.
Tony Stark: You stood by my side all these years while I reaped the benefits of destruction. Now that I’m trying to protect the people I’ve put in harm’s way, you’re going to walk out?
Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts: You’re going to kill yourself, Tony. I’m not going to be a part of it.
Tony Stark: I shouldn’t be alive… unless it was for a reason. I’m not crazy, Pepper. I just finally know what I have to do. And I know in my heart that it’s right.

Earlier, during the first part of the movie, we could see a large number of artworks in Starks luxury apartment, and during one of his brief meetings with Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts, the secretary, we witness an in detail conversation on a possible acquisition of a  Jackson Pollock painting. Stark and Pepper goes into a very brief professional debate if the given painting is from the Spring period of Pollock or not, and when they come up that it might be from that period, Stark orders the secretary to buy it and store it in a vault with a only a slight movement of the hand. Stark also own a large collection of vintage sport cars.

Let’s contemplate a little on these scenes from the movie. The young multimillionaire appears to be a patron of arts, contemporary (at least modern) art especially (check out his apartment from the movie).  Now, whose art he is collecting, for who he is donating, when he says: “There’s no art opening, no charity, nothing to sign!“?

First, lets take a look of Tony Stark fictional bio from Wikipedia:

Born Anthony Edward “Tony” Stark, he suffers a severe heart injury during a kidnapping and is forced to build a destructive weapon. He instead creates a power suit to save his life and help protect the world as the superhero Iron Man. He is a wealthy industrialist and genius inventor who created military weapons and whose metal suit is laden with technological devices that enable him to fight crime. Initially, Iron Man was a vehicle for Stan Lee (the creator of Iron Man comics) to explore Cold War themes, particularly the role of American technology and business in the fight against communism. Subsequent re-imaginings of Iron Man have gradually removed the Cold War themes, replacing them with more contemporary concerns such as corporate crime and terrorism.

Stark is the stereotypical businessman of the Cold War era United States, concerned about global political, social issues and possibly intervening onto them, in this case with direct action. His past life of “art openings, charity and signing petitions” has passed as he become involved on a direct level into geopolitical issues – but let’s get back from the fantasies of the comics.

Stark (let’s stick to the 2008 movie version of him)  is a collector, and a generous donor of art – his cliche character might be familiar from the movie Citizen Kane (1941) by Orson Welles. What kind of art he is collecting and why he does so? Critical art mediated by professional curators which aiming key social, political questions and directly intervene into these processes? Or a market oriented production of paintings and sculptures which are manufactured by professional craftsman? Do not forget that Jackson Pollock, who has a brief appearance in the movie, was considered to be by some art-historians to be the later in the final stage of his career.

His character, like many other example of bourgeois background heroes and villains (remember from the 70′ how much the evil-doers of the James Bond movies liked to collect minimalist art) in the popular cinema and culture are collecting artworks as a sign of fine taste and elegance.The modern mind is surrounded with modern thoughts, modern artworks. But does this character of art patronage do have any relation to what nowadays we call critical artistic practice? Does it has any relation of what is seen in any contemporary art related exhibition space or institution? Or it is just about the aesthetics, a mere cliche in the narration of the life events of the main protagonist, who supports free thoughts and arts just to display his/her talents in diverse fields?

Iron Man – Stark gives an answer, as he denounces his former life, and deeds in the field of charity and “art openings”, and votes for the action. Maybe it is possible, that Iron Man was engaged into an art world which has vary little influence out of its circles and decided to take the very same direction of direct action and intervention as activist art, hactivism,  tactical media, radical avantgarde, guerilla art does? Maybe all superheroes are artist or all artist are superheroes?

Do you see the opposing stances the two art model generates?

Street Access Machine® by Technologies To The People®

« ART FOR BUSINESS’ SAKE – Technologies To The People® is a work in progress. It’s a metaphor about the use of technologies, while acting as a public provocation. I am creating a virtual company that exists only as an artistic project, though it actually operates for the rest of society. Technologies To The People® works with the media infrastructure of corporate companies. Technologies To The People® habitually sponsors artistic events through its representation policies. Technologies To The People® is aimed at people in the so-called Third World, as well as the homeless, orphaned, expatriated or unemployed, fringe groups, runaways, immigrants, alcoholics, drug addicts, people suffering from mental dysfunctions and all other categories of “undesirables”, all those without social ties and unable to find a safe place to live, all those who have to beg in order to survive. .»  – Daniel Garcia Andujar, TTTP (Technologies To The People®)

”L’art pour l’art” or “Art for Art’s Sake” (Ars Gratia Artis) was the slogan for several generation of artist on the late 19th, early 20th century – as Wikipeia suggests:

“Art for art’s sake” was a bohemian creed in the nineteenth century, a slogan raised in defiance of those who — from John Ruskin to the much later Communist advocates of socialist realism — thought that the value of art was to serve some moral or didactic purpose. “Art for art’s sake” affirmed that art was valuable as art, that artistic pursuits were their own justification and that art did not need moral justification — and indeed, was allowed to be morally subversive.”

For those who are familiar with the nowadays relation of art and business funding, the above quote may sound a little bit odd as the artistic struggle for identity and self affirmation, in which “L’art pour l’art” was an important step to make, seems to diverted to a different direction, towards the Art for Business’ Sake…

“L’art pour l’art”, which is largely misunderstood as a movement turning art’s focus into itself and becoming self referential and inbreed, was aiming to create a media which was in fact not supporting a bourgeois system of reproduction, but rather detach itself from the daily interest of those who wished to use art’s pure decorative function. The very idea behind “L’art pour l’art” was to create an independent, self sustaining platform for critical thoughts and creating a neutral point of view to the society, for which the artist was creating works for.

It might be impossible to point out a single direction where nowadays arts are heading, or even to put a finger on what is the “general” direction of contemporary art, or it is impossible even to say if nowadays art fulfilled the brave concept and heritage of “L’art pour l’art” original idea. Yet, we can present art projects, artist groups which seriously consider the question and status of “L’art pour l’art” even now, and constantly investigating how art becoming more or less distanced from “moral and didactic purpose”.But the main question concerning “L’art pour l’art” is, if the market is considereed to be a “moral and didactic purpose” or not, as nowadays Contemporary Art is seems to be much dependent on it’s market. On the other hand, those who defile “L’art pour l’art”, like the socialist-realist, constructivist artist and their avantgarde followers fight for the same kind of intellectual independence for their actions, but with a much critical approach towards society.

The posts under the tag: Projects critical to Artworld in this blog are trying to collect some of the projects which are dealing with the notion of this dubious relationship, especially on the notion of donating and gifting but as the number of artworks are quite high, I would appreciate any suggestion and help collecting at least a fracture of the scores of such works. Please do it in the comments.
Anyway, an interesting article from the Wired can be found on this issue, summarizing many aspects of the “Art for Business’ Sake” relationship.

An example:

The Technologies To The People® artist group has a number of artworks which are dealing with the relationship of Business and Arts: the Street Access Machine® is a simplified ATM machine and cash register to ease the process of donating money to beggars.

To promote these aims, Technologies To The People® has developed and manufactured the Street Access Machine® for the fringe groups previously mentioned. The machine can be used 24 hours a day with all credit cards (cybercash). With the Street Access Machine®, credit cards are now welcome everywhere – including the street. All you need to do is install a Street Access Machine® and the problems of begging will be a thing of the past. Those wishing to donate money to the needy simply present a credit card and stipulate the sum they are willing to part with. The destitute can withdraw the money from a cash dispenser using their Recovery Card® in conjunction with a personal password. Simple to use and interest-free. At last, a comprehensive credit card service for one and all.  (from the Technologies To The People® website)

The clear irony of the work aims a system of production which the above Wired article refers as: The term (Art for Business Sake) is used to describe art and nonprofit sectors using the strategic, long-term investment model employed by venture capitalists that requires business plans and productivity reports. As “L’art pour l’art”, the long time achievement of generation of artist are not meant to be treated as ” a  chance to acquire cheap innovative technology for later mass production”, but as a tool of critical thinking and change, no matter if rallied aroud “L’art pour l’art” or its opposite, activist, political art.

A Quote by Richard Barbrook

Currently I am digging myself into Raoul Vaneigem’s The Revolution of Everyday Life, an important work on the possibility of total self management and gift-economy. In the same time I also found some articles, like The High-Tech Gift Economy by Richard Barbrook, or Internet Gift Economies by Kylie Veale and in the same time, also browsing trough the Subsol index, which is a large collection of really interesting readings on art and economy related subjects, including: Self-Organizing Markets by Manuel de Landa, New Media Culture in the Age of the New Economy by Geert Lovink, and Some Thoughts on the Idea of “Hacker Culture” by Patrice Riemens.

The donor Francesco Sassetti with his son on the main mural of the Sassetti Chapel, Florance by Domenico Ghirlandaio

The “gift” is an item or action which is offered with not asking compensation in return.
An “artwork” is an artificial object – as the objects created by the nature are can not considered to to be artworks, according to Hegel, unless they implement an element of mind (human), which in fact means that human intervention is needed, at least on a conceptual level to annotate these items as artworks:

(…) For it is possible even for finite nature, in its particular scenes and phenomena, to make its appearance in the realm of art, if only some allusion to an element of mind endows it with affinity to thought and feeling. (Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics, Part III, from Marxist.org )

Therefore “artwork gifts” are highly precious objects which needs a high level of human artifice skill to produce (skill and talent) and are donated as gifts. I am writing about discrete artworks now, and excluding the notion of artworks which deliberately made for a purpose,  for example advertisements of any kind.

Let’s see three different kind of donations on the framework of art(works) and donating.

1. Donating art as a personal gift: Like any other commodity, the work of a craftsman is transferred from one owner to another. Either be the creator (artist) to the receiver, or by a third party to the receiver with adequate compensation to the craftsman. An ornate wedding ring, or a portrait might be a good example.  Please consider that these objects has a purpose, they remind the receiver to whom they got the “gift” from.
2. Donating art to the public: The same exchange as above, but without a single receiver as such, for example a legal body (state) decides to commission a craftsman to decorate a public area.  The commissioner ask nothing in return from the receiver, and in most cases the creator of the artwork is compensated. Any 19th century public monument of public space (public gardens, parks etc.) might do.
3. Donating art as a form of representation: It is possible to do the above (ie: donating to the public as a gift), but in the same time involve a form of exchange. The commissioner-giver, gets something in return what is special to a highly detailed and precious object can offer: attention. As an artwork is a discrete  object, a singular work of craftsmanship which holds an unique message, as it is a focus of all attention in the art world. For example a significant mural, which holds a large degree of craftsmanship and innovative power, commissioned by a wealthy giver, who can afford to do so. In this case the gift receives a new layer of understanding: it is free, but helps the personal interest of those who made it possible to exist.

What makes this third kind of exchange really interesting is its uniqueness to art. Why would anyone create or commision any object without compensation and make it public? Unless he/she is not obliged to represent him/herself in any other way. And here becomes the question really interesting:

What makes a wealthy dutch family to appear with the holy image of Christ, not as family with the estate in the background? What makes an influential Italian banker to not make a portrait, rather be represented on one of the most progressive and fascinating mural of the times? In some extent the question implements the answer. By commissioning the artwork from Domenico Ghirlandaio, one of the most progressive artist of its time, the former CEO of the Medici Bank Francesco Sassetti archived much more then he ever could with any advertisement, he donated a chapel, the world famous Sassetti Chapel to the city of Florance and archived immortality by this artwork – that’s something a simple portrait form the same master, or by a lesser and much less expensive painter – could never achieve (even trough there are portraits which had the similar status, but this does not mean that those images were not related to similar exchanges, take Piero Della Francesca and his portraits and work in Urbino as an example).

Christ Blessing, Surrounded by a Donor and His Family (Triptych of a Protestant Family), ca. 1575–80

In the case of the Sassetti Chapel, we might assume, that elaborate rules of social representation and engagement were in the background of such donation, but in the case of  Ludger tom Ring the Younger’s work, the Christ Blessing, Surrounded by a Donor and His Family (Triptych of a Protestant Family), ca. 1575–80 we might assume that the protestant attitude towards self-representation was the fuel of such way of illustration. This image is a strange mixture of representations: as it is either can be interpreted as a sacral image with an assorted family portrait, or a family portrait with an assorted sacral image. If we consider the year of the making of this artwork, a transition period of both religious history and art history we might find out that the portrait might served both functions – not too sacral for being abolished from a protestant point of view, and not too worldly for a catholic system of thinking about representation. By the way, the later makes it a gift: as it is an altarpiece to a public church, which church might be lingering in between identities I think.

Imagine the same nowadays, a fine work by a contemporary artist with the donor on it: a wealthy banker or CEO in a performance, or sitting in an installation. Could this be possible?

Razor1911 warez group logo

We  are  the  result  of  your  laws.
We are the result of your  democracy.
We are the result of your corruption. (PROCYON group announcement)

One of the most important aspect of hacker culture is the donation of the stolen (hacked) product to the public, turning the result of the heist into a free, shared public commodity. In theory, the activity of the hacker aims to free up the intellectual products which are held back from the public by its ruthless, profit seeking publishers. The hacker mythology was always very aware to the general rules of gift economy, and as it become widespread with the generational change of the last few years, the generation, of which elite are mostly made up of ex-hackers are supporting many different kind of alternative economy models. After all, they have realized, that if they publish (others) intellectual properties for the public, they have to rely on similar exchanges in many other filed of economy.

But let’s take a quick overview on the notion of gifting in this culture: and especially the aspect of warez , the distribution of stolen, (pirated) movies and software applications.

The traditional hacker does not hack databases for mere financial interest, or personal gain: they do it for allowing information to shake down the shackles of those who want to profit from them.

It might be hard to point out exactly, what is the relation of the warez scene, which produces most of the file-sharing content, (movies, music, books, software applications, computer games) and the original hacker groups of the seventies, but the working method and the underlying philosophy link the two in many aspects. According to a Wikipedia definition, the warez, the product of the warez groups are:

The term generally refers to illegal releases by organized groups, as opposed to peer-to-peer file sharing between friends or large groups of people with similar interest using a darknet. It usually does not refer to commercial for-profit software counterfeiting. This term was initially coined by members of the various computer underground circles, but has since become commonplace among Internet users and the mass media.

The warez is stolen intellectual property, redistributed freely to the public – yet, the legal definition is much more straightforward, as warez distribution counts as something similar to theft in most western countries, yet many amendments have to be taken due the special aspect of digital media. The warez groups steals the product, usually in advance, before its planned publishing, and breaks the different security systems encrypting it, and finally make it public on open channels of digital distribution, usually on P2P networks or other fast speed file sharing systems.

What makes these organizations interesting on regard of Gift-Economy are their attitude towards the possible gains of their heists – they are asking nothing in return, and also discouraging further distributors to do otherwise. Somehow they threat to the stolen merchandise as a “prisoner” of a corrupt system, which was freed up for those who would like to use them.

The quote on the beginning of the post somehow refers to this issue – for these hackers, the one who blame is a corrupt system, which distorted the notion of private property and intellectual domain. Therefore for them, hacking and re-distributing is a semi-political issue, they want to undermine the notion of property with their activity, therefore rewriting the rules of exchange for the whole society.

next: Gift-economy and P2P networks

meanwhile, further reading into the subject can be found here: Future Positive, check out  The Hacker Milieu as Gift Culture by Eric Steven Raymond, and also recommend the other interesting essays on this page.

An EU Green Card, won on the EU GREEN CARD LOTTERY, made by the artist group Societe Realiste (http://www.green-card-lottery-eu.org/)

Lottery, the last flicker of hope to the needy or the guiding light for those who are waiting to get a Green Card to the United States, divides our society. Some consider it to be an ultimate evil:

Lotteries are most often run by governments or local states and are sometimes described as a regressive tax, since those most likely to buy tickets will typically be the less affluent members of a society. The astronomically high odds against winning the larger prizes have also led to the epithets of a “tax on stupidity”, “math tax” or “voluntary tax”. They are intended to suggest that lotteries, being an addictive form of gambling, are governmental revenue-raising mechanisms that will attract only those consumers who fail to see that the game is a very bad deal. Indeed, the desire of lottery operators to guarantee themselves a profit requires that an average lottery ticket be worth substantially less than what it costs to buy. (via Wikipedia)

But for some, lottery is a form of donation: the first ticket were some form os shares, which were used as a loan to raise money to different issues, like founding colonies in the 17-18. century, or to build cultural institutions:

Lotteries in colonial America played a significant part in the financing of both private and public ventures. It has been recorded that more than two hundred lotteries were sanctioned between 1744 and 1776 where they played a major role in financing projects that included roads, libraries, churches, colleges, canals, bridges, etc.[3] In the 1740s, Princeton and Columbia University had their beginnings financed by lotteries, as did the University of Pennsylvania by the Academy Lottery in 1755.

In England, the National Lottery for Good Causes is financing a wide range of cultural, social, environmental projects – as the name suggest, they do good anywhere in the world.
It was a widespread custom in the 18-19. century to raise funds with lottery, yet, these event were held for an exclusive audience, who did a compulsory donation, and won some sort of minor present in return. Yet, very little research was done on this issue. If I can manage to grab a book on the issue, I will post it here later.

Seconds after the Leap Into the Void, a performance by Yves Klein

Even trough there are many artist who archived much in the process of dematerialize contemporary art works, a few matches Yves Klein, who, with an ultimate gesture, wasted a small quantity of gold into the river Seine.

“Moreover, Klein sought a way to evaluate his ‘immaterial pictorial sensitivity’ and decided that pure gold would be a fair exchange. He offered to sell it to any person willing to purchase such an extraordinary, if intangible, commodity, in exchange for gold leaf. Several ‘sales ceremonies’ were conducted: one took place on the banks of the River Seine on 10 February 1962. Gold leaf and a receipt changed hands between the artist and the purchaser. But since ‘immaterial sensitivity’ could be nothing but a spiritual quality, Klein insisted that all remains of the transaction be destroyed: he threw the gold leaf into the river and requested that the purchaser burn the receipt. There were seven purchasers in all.” (via Webhaven gallery, From the book “Performance Art” by RoseLee Goldberg, Thames and Hudson, London, 1988)

Yves Klein pouring gold into the river Seine, 1962

Wikipedia tells the following about the transaction:

In the performance piece, Zones de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle (Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility) 1959-62, he offered empty spaces in the city in exchange for gold. He wanted his buyers to experience The Void by selling them empty space. In his view this experience could only be paid for in the purest material: gold. In exchange, he gave a certificate of ownership to the buyer. As the second part of the piece, performed on the Seine with an Art critic in attendance, if the buyer agreed to set fire to the certificate, Klein would throw half the gold into the river, in order to restore the “natural order” that he had unbalanced by selling the empty space (that was now not “empty” anymore). He used the other half of the gold to create a series of gold-leafed works, which, along with a series of pink monochromes, began to augment his blue monochromes toward the end of his life.

Hospitality of Abraham by Andrei Rublev

The custom of “friendship hospitality”, Xenia – generous treatment of strangers, wanderers, dates back to the Ancient Greek times. Zeus Xenios, Wandering Zeus was the patron gods of travelers, who could expect to find a bowl of warm soup and a bed anywhere in the Ancient Greek lands. A violation of Xenia led to the outbreak

In Ovid’s moralizing fable (Metamorphoses VIII), which stands on the periphery of Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Baucis and Philemon were an old married couple in the region of Tyana, which Ovid places in Phrygia, and the only ones in their town to welcome disguised gods Zeus and Hermes (in Roman mythology, Jupiter and Mercury respectively), thus embodying the pious exercise of hospitality, the ritualized guest-friendship termed xenia.

The story appears in many other mythological sources, for example folktales about poor wanderers, who turns to be kings or divine entities, and bestow riches in return of the hospitality. Also, consider the story of Abraham and the three angels visiting his tent, and bestows him with child after his generosity. However, the Greek version is the only one, which states, that a gift have to be given by the host at the end of the visit.  The basic rules of Xenia are:

Xenia consists of three basic rules: The respect from host to guest, the respect from guest to host, and the parting gift from host to guest. The host must be hospitable to the guest and provide him with food and drink and a bath, if required. It is not polite to ask questions until the guest has stated his needs. The guest must be courteous to his host and not be a burden. The parting gift is to show the host’s honor at receiving the guest. This was especially important in the ancient times when men thought gods mingled amongst them. If you had played host to a deity (a concept known as theoxenia) and performed poorly, you would incur the wrath of a god. (via wikipedia)

Does Xenia falls under the criteria of modern day gift-economy, as one of the driving force behind this custom was the fact, that any of the travelers could be a god in disguise? Definitely yes, as the moral gain of the story is only affirms a social tradition which seems to be a crucial element of Ancient Greek Society.

Amazon Noir logo

Amazon Noir is another project by the artist/hacktivist team Ubermorgen.com, which exploiting a trivial element of the amazon.com website. You can search for any phrase in any of the books which the site offers for sale and you will get a short, 50 word quotation from the book.  Ubermorgen started the process, as they searched for the first few words of any book, then used an algorithm to copy the last sentence and search for it again. Then sentence by sentence, entire books was reconstructed by the automatic algorithm in a matter of moments.

Then Ubermorgen makes the book down loadable on their website, although I have to admit,  what I wrote about GWEI (Google will eat itself)  is also true here: the project is much more a display then an actual hacker attempt, still this does not diminish the merits of the work, as neither do in the case of GWEI. But the choice of books Amazon Noir offers id quite interesting – the seven books they “leeched” out from Amazon consist an important reader Steal this Book by Abbie Hoffman, which is sometimes referred as the bible of free culture. This book, which functions as an inspiration to the team also, plays an important part in the future presentations of AN:

At the opening of the Access Show in Basel, the stolen & custom made Amazon Noir
Book with the title “Steal This Book” by Abbie Hoffman was stolen out of the
Incubator. The organizers of the Festival immediately put a warning inside the
Incubator stating that the Book was stolen, and the next day a reprint was produced
and put into the incubator. But… the organizers put out a press-release about the
theft. The media in Switzerland, Germany and Austria reacted hysterically and
published articles and features in the news and culture sections of their news-
papers, online newsservices and on radio and television. (amazon noir website)

Eventually, Amazon overcame of the hidden gate the hackers were using and stoped their activity, but never the less, Ubermorgen showed us a glimpse on the real concept of free library. Yet, free culture has the nessesary mythology to work on the

The only problem with the books of Amazon Noir is, that the books lack all formatting and images, as the technology does not allow to transport these, and this effect in many cases makes the material hard to read.

Rai Stone carried by the indigenous Yap people

Rai Stones are a special form of currency, which acts as symbolic item in exchanges on the Micronesian island of Yap. It does resembles a large stone coin, craved out of limestone, has an average width of 1 meter  and weights up to 4 tonnes.The stones value is changing according to its history, where was it transported, and if anyone died during its transport.

Rai stones were used in social transactions such as marriage, inheritance, political deals, sign of an alliance, ransom of the battle dead or just in exchange for food. Many of them are placed in front of meetinghouses or specific pathways. Though the ownership of a particular stone changes, the stone itself is rarely moved. The names of previous owners are passed down to the new one. (via Wikiepdia)

Further information on the rai stones, and their useage on the wikipedia. I would higlight the fact that the colonial Japanese forces used them as anchors as they found no value in these items.

(image is by Rudy)

20 million dollar artwork from an Ebay auction

Ebay a day is an attempt to redefine the distribution of the artworks in the current market economy situation of the contemporary Artworld.  Using the distribution channels of an already well known system of barter, the online auction house Ebay in the form of an online, temporal exhibition.

Curated by Rebekah Modrak, Aaron Ahuvia and Zackery Denfeld, ebayaday consists of 25 auctions (one debuts each day) in which the entire eBay listing (item for sale, descriptive text and imagery and placement within chosen categories) is the artwork. Works presented in the show exploit, redefine or underscore eBay’s potential in the exchange of ideas, objects and money.

Ebayaday is a month-long, curated exhibition on eBay designed to exploit, redefine or underscore eBay’s potential as a site for the exchange of ideas, objects and commerce. Each of the 24 artists juried into the show received instructions for one specific day and time to post a listing in a 7-day online auction on eBay.com. Unlike the thousands of traditional art objects for sale on eBay at any given moment, the pieces in ebayaday incorporate the various methods and systems of eBay as elements in the work. Each aspect of the listing (item for sale, descriptive text and placement within chosen categories) is a part of the artwork. (from the ebayaday.com website)

The exhibition reflects not only on the multimedia aspects of usage Ebay, but also on the possible identities of the works and artist themselves. Is it possible to detach the exchange of artworks from a centuries old institution of exchange, and if it is, does the result is still considered to be exist in the framework of the art world system?

Please check out the great supporting text from the Ebayaday website for further detalis:

• Artists & The Online Marketplace: Making A Gesture, Sharing An Idea AND Carrying Out A Plan in 34 Categories By Rebekah Modrak & Zackery Denfeld
• From McDonalds to eBay as a Metaphor for Our Times By Aaron Ahuvia

Mosaic of enthroned Christ with Theodore Metochites presenting a model of Chora Church, Istanbul (detail)

The Museum of Modern Art opened with six rooms on the twelfth floor of an office building on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, New York, and changed locations more than ten times over the next ten years. One of the three founder, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller’s husband:  “was opposing the idea of the museum (as well as to modern art itself) and refused to release funds for the venture, which had to be obtained from other sources and resulted in the frequent shifts of location. Nevertheless, he eventually donated the land for the current site of the museum, plus other gifts over time, and thus became in effect one of its greatest benefactors. “

Almost each and every major museum in the western world were founded on a gift – a donation of a major collector to the public ,even though by “public” in the 18-19. century the donors meant a small circle of bourgeois art enthusiast. Tate London’s original collection was a gift of Robert Vernon and Harry Tate, Prado in Madrid was a “deposition” of Isabella the II, and the Louvre – as a fine expectation – was opened to the public  as a “benefit of liberty”.

For example, the above mentioned Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York, – the first museum in the US to show European modernism has started its collection with a gift of one drawing and seven prints. Under the guidance of a young and talented curator, Alfred H. Barr from the very beginning, – despite the formidable lack of founds (MoMa was opened just days the 1929 Wall Street Crash, the MoMa become one of the major voice in the contemporary art scene.

We tend to forget how and when our public institutions were established and who was behind their original idea or function, and none the less, collection. It is easy to measure this effect of memory lapse if we watch a television news coverage of any cultural event – they do not say which corporation or Ltd. has provided the funding for the event as it would be considered an advertisement, but the media freely give the name of the institution in the same coverage, the Guggenheim Museum for example, which in fact has the same legal status than any other firm might want to advertise. Of course, the Guggenheim is a foundation, therefore executes a noble purpose by exhibiting artworks and only taking some “advised entry fee”. But let’s not get into the question of the identity and purpose of the nowadays museum giants, but get back the the notion of gift – donating.

Why would anyone donate his/her entire work to the public?
Can anyone imagine a nowadays billionaire or corporation give away the profit in the form of a public donation? Even without the secret but much desired benefit of the unlocking hidden talents of creativity in the field of Contemporary art, expanding the circle of  a possible education cooperation or gaining PR benefits towards higher class customers.

For tax refund or immortality, maybe?
Of course, people can die, corporations can’t – Those who founded the classic collections of our times, could have donated their “inventory of curiosities” to their siblings, who could still benefit from the much needed tax refund (and therefore does not need to sell the collection to the highest bidder) – so this effect could not be the engine to this act of generosity.
Immortality might be a fuel to this action – old colonial exploiters, ruthless factory owners might patch up their good renown by a major contribution to the public.

Eventually it could be that the act of donating can’t fit into the neo-liberal idea of values and market virtues – in which you always have to profit somehow, – and never will, as it is a deed of different times – the age of philanthropy and high expectations towards a better future. Which does not exclude anyone or any organization to donate to the public even nowdays, as long there are no hidden market agenda behind, not because they are not allowed to do so, but because that is not what they will found in arts, as art has to be a gift. Since if it is not, it is not called art any more, it is an investment with given interest rate.