[Nettime-bold] 1st Public White Cube

[Joachim Blank <blank@sero.org>]

-pressrelease

PWC
1st Public White Cube
http://www.projektraum.org

-Working with the public’s involvement-
-Economic influence on artistic projects-

A project of Blank & Jeron and Gerrit Gohlke
presented by gallery Mathias Kampl

Opening: Adib Fricke
 SWOKS
September 29th, 2001 ? October 27th, 2001
Opening reception: Friday, September 28th, 2001, 7 pm

Preview: November 3rd, 2001 ? December 1st,  2001
 Peter Friedl
Opening reception: Friday, November 2nd, 2001


Countdown.
On September 28, an unusual series of auctions will begin with the
opening of the exhibition »SWOKS« by Adib Fricke in the 1st Public White
Cube. What’s up for bid here aren’t the customary art objects, but
rather the right to alter them. The public can bid on the right to
irreversibly change the exhibited art ? according to its own taste and
its own ideas. Certain rules prevent the removal of walls or the
endangerment of the public. Apart from this, however, absolutely no
limitation is being imposed. The viewer can demand and realize whatever
he or she desires. The only precondition is that the viewer overbid the
competition and pay for his or her manipulation. It’s not the taste of
the organizers that will decide the form of the art, but rather the way
the auctioning business proceeds.

Up to six internet auctions per exhibition.
The sequence of changes is planned as an ongoing process. Up to six
auctions will take place during each of the four week-long exhibitions.
Three artists have consented to take part in the process, during which
the exhibited work could change extensively. Thus, up to 18 auctions
will be taking place, a number, however, which is contingent on the
existing demand and will remain mutable. The internet will serve as the
auction location; in using the auction platform Ebay®, an extremely
successful auction marketplace will be made available for anyone to use
free of risk. This process not only allows us to keep the starting bid
of the auctions low ? the minimum bid for each change is a mere DEM
20.00 (10.23 EUR) ? but also to conduct the auctions publicly. Any
computer with access to the internet can provide a look at our
documentation website http://wwwprojektraum.org and enable a
participation in the auctions. A simple registration procedure and the
placement of a bid on the Ebay site suffice.

Interaction in real space.
While the auctions are taking place in the internet (visitors without
access to the internet can also place their bids during opening times
and by appointment in the Project Room in Auguststrasse 35), the
interventions purchased by the public in the auctions will be taking
place in the gallery, which will continue to change at every stage, thus
becoming a counter-image to the interaction on the screen: the
interaction carries consequences. What if exhibited art would be dealt
with interactively in a real sense, we asked ourselves ? and when would
an »interactive« installation have consequences?

Adib Fricke’s space.
The Berlin artist Adib Fricke will open the exhibition series by
presenting a word piece in the form of a room installation. Fricke, who
often works in the public arena and has realized numerous new word
creations (protonyms) there over the past few years, regularly contrasts
appearance with meaning, public intervention with a minimum offer of
signs, artistic autonomy with professional marketing in his work.
Fricke’s »The Word Company« appears in the internet as a middle-class
wholesale supplier. What’s being supplied here, however, are not objects
of trade, but words that have been professionally visualized, referring
to nothing but themselves. Thus, art is not only being questioned using
the mechanisms of trademark production; in an ironic way, it documents
its role in the public sphere ? an ideal beginning situation for the 1st
Public White Cube. Here, Adib Fricke will be presenting the protonym
»SWOKS,« installed from wall to wall in front of a minimal amount of
furniture.

Public confession.
The public will have the choice as to how it wishes to deal with this
offer. Will it carefully take up the concept or articulate itself
through destruction? Will it seek cooperation or conflict? The 1st
Public White Cube is taking every risk, even that of standstill and
banality. The market decides elsewhere in the art system, as well; here,
though, the consumer has a more direct influence on the art objects. He
or she has the right to deform them. Thus, the 1st Public White Cube is
concerned with reacting to a development during the course of which the
larger museum exhibitions have become increasingly public-oriented. As
dependent on viewer quotas as the entertainment media, they have often
melted difficult or uncomfortable art into colorful collages, and the
artistic concept has often disappeared behind them. One could ask
parodically: does the public deform in a different way than the curators
do? And does the copyright remain despite the manipulation? The 1st
Public White Cube is an experiment with an uncertain result. It is also
a plea to take a risk ? and a chance for collectors: in the last
auction, shortly before the exhibition closes, Fricke’s space will be up
for sale complete with all the manipulations that have been carried out
? for an increased minimum bid.

For further information and visual material, contact us directly at
http://www.projektraum.org or subscribe our newsletter at
http://www.projektraum.org/newsletter

Sincerely,

Joachim Blank, Gerrit Gohlke and Karl Heinz Jeron

PWC Projektraum
Auguststraße 35
10119  Berlin
phone.fax 030. 283 918 62
e-mail: pwc@projektraum.org
http://www.projektraum.org
open Thursday ? Friday
3 ? 6 pm, Saturday 12 am ? 4 pm



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