DOUGLAS PARK: EXHIBITION PROPOSAL

dear all,

i contact you to present some notes for a plan of an exhibition.

each entry is the name of a definite or possible artist and work that matches my criteriæ –including yourselves and / or people you are connected with.

the reason i have sent it is to hear your advice, critique, questions, confirmation and suggestions etc.

i am also curious if you have or know of any images, documentation or other information relating to any of this.

there is a strong possibility that a dossier / archive version of this material could appear as part of an exhibition in paris in the new year –as well as my more extreme hopes and ambitions that it might be accepted by a major art institution / exhibition space / museum etc as a project.

if this incarnation goes ahead, it will be very a la mel bochner’s seminal art exhibition, ‘working drawings and other visible things on paper not necessarily meant to be viewed as art’, school of visual arts, new york, 1966. as you may or might not know, ‘working drawings and other visible things on paper not necessarily meant to be viewed as art’ was originally to have been presented as a relatively conventional objects (framed prints) and show (hung on walls). however, the host institution (school of visual arts, new york) deemed this was both expensive and unjustified. because of that (and also in keeping with the idea –and much conceptualism), mel bochner ended up presenting everything bound in 4 loose ring leaf binder files, each on a separate pedestal / socle / plinth / column, for viewers to read, browse and study. exhibits mel bochner chose, included: sketches by the minimalists dan flavin and sol lewitt; an itemised invoice sent to another minimalist, don judd for the materials and fabrication cost of 1 of his works; a mathematician's calculations, formulæ and equations; a page from a number of ‘scientific american’; a musical score by the composer, john cage; the 1st image was a plan of the gallery space; the collection finished with the assembly diagram for the xerox machine used to produce ‘working drawings and other visible things on paper not necessarily meant to be viewed as art’.

if there is anything you wish to know, ask or say, please contact me and i will do my best to answer and help.

yours, douglas park

the following is an attempt to introduce, describe and explain every exponent and example coming to mind of a seemingly overlooked but nonetheless worthy idiom or genre. this cultural area identified being artists making work after fate striking whatever stage of their own output not only drastically affects outcome –but appears deliberately addressed and used in the same work –or actually generates other work. existing intentional and self-conscious meaning, expectations and plans can change beyond recognition, as well as become further added to -or even entirely new dimensions arise.

questions asked encourage and provoke playing with and defiance of proscribed constructs as to whether any process, product, experience or situation is ever predictable, fixed, definitive or controlled in ongoing and inconclusive reality –and also the feasibility of choice or freedoms within any conditions.

such circumstances number (foreseeable and unexpected): accidents, complications, mistakes, interpersonal / political / media / public etc adversity, resource and facility shortages, technical hitches, conservation, storage and transit issues, side effects, spinoffs, afterlives hindsight, retraced steps etc. still more factors include flexibility, opportunism and capitalisation.

william anastasi: photo canvases, depicting installation views of anastasi’s earlier works en situ –which were same-size shots of the very gallery walls where they hung. anything else?

arman: arman’s chosen / changed name refers to an error missing out the “d” from “armand” –and possibly also his “fernandez” surname as well. anything else?

artists anonymous: video recording conflict with landlord of their london space, during what was otherwise an open-evening. anything else?

john baldessarri: baldessari heralding his increasing changeover to conceptual art, photographing the tail ends of heavy goods vehicles which he found his own otherwise abstract paintings (un / consciously?) resembled, as well as baldessari’s decision to have these earlier, mostly unsold paintings cremated (with official registration and announcement, photographic records, urn of ashes and commemorative memorial plaque).

joseph beuys: using the nosebleed inflicted by a right wing protester to make a parody hitler moustache (as a travesty of hitler), whilst making a fascist salute and raising a beer stein with a crucifix in it. anything else?

derek boshier: unopenable (mock children’s?) book, reacting to censorship and outcry over allegations made in projects by both conrad atkinson and tony rickaby as part of boshier’s late 70’s ‘lives’ arts council exhibition. possibly other work / material. anything else?

damien bourdaud: ‘wheres my catalogue?’. publication / other material(?) protesting the cancelled reprinting of a catalogue put out by tanja grunjert of / including bourdaud. the grounds given, being that bordaud’s content and imagery were too extreme to justify public funds and resources from the french state / loire region. anything else?

ian breakwell: diary entry (and any audio record?) describing 1 of breakwell’s early expanded cinema performances and lecture presentations in some hotel –disrupted by some loud and destructive domestic argument in the kitchen. tape recording the old bailey law court car bombing by mistake (because machine was left running when the phone rang, then….). possibly final works charting lead up to his death. anything else?

marcel broodthers (and izi fiszman!). unclear which work/s are concerned. fiszman bought –then deliberately damaged work by broodthaers. the same work/s were given visible (and emphasised?) and maybe crude repairs. also, the very 1st / an early editioned work by broodthaers, which came about when he was scheduled to be in a portfolio of (otherwise CoBrA, informele and taschiste etc artist’s) prints, then saw his name misprinted and incomplete on the prospectus / advert, so broodthaers indicated and corrected the mistake –a reproduction of which became his contribution. anything else?

chris burden: finding fault with critic’s reviews of him. giving advice, correction and improvement. anything else?

daniel buren: ‘p h opera’. after appearing in a group show of conceptual art at le palais des beaux arts / het paleis voor schone kunsten (bozars!) in brussels, buren somehow wrangled an overstayed welcome reign-of-terror there –dragging on for 3 years. buren’s presence consisted of a serial changeover of anonymous and discreet, yet dominant and overwhelming interventions using his customary trademark striped screens, sheets and panelling, appearing and placed in and around different features of the premises, while the program continued as normal. considered and described as a theatrical spectacle, ‘p h opera’ interacted with every exhibition staged there during this period. when buren was meant to appear in a survey of french art –he surrendered his gallery space and publication pages to the young politico collective, pour. various developments (and sometimes, difficulty and conflict) happened between buren, the institution’s hierarchy and personnel and exhibiting artists and organisations. anything else?

andre cadere: setbacks affecting cadere’s ‘barre de bois ronde’ “placements” squatting other people’s shows uninvited. having to reduce the size of 1 work (a rod / staff / totem) so as to be allowed in fondatione mæght. official adverts placed in art and other periodicals announcing cadere to unwelcome / banned from visiting / attending cultural events and venues. possibly other adversity encountered and compromises and adaptations. jacques charlier photojournalism exposing cadere interventions as causing problems for ordinary museum personnel. anything else?

sophie calle: inclusion in calle’s work of interpersonal problematics (objections, accusations, action taken etc) from people used in her reality-warp scenarios. anything else?

richard crow / institution of rot: breakage and leaking in the post of a bottle of wine mailed to crow by fellow artist, rut blees luxemburg (of her family’s blees-ferber mosel riesling), still included in performances and exhibited in that state. stray dog coming in off the street, snaffling up and making off with a jam-tart from 1 of crow’s floor pieces. 1 of crow’s performances and some building work scheduled to happen at the same time. ‘bring freude ins leben’ (inscription on blees luxemburg’s mailing) meaning “bring joy / happiness in/to life” –misinterpreted by writer and critic ed scheer as: “bring DR SIGMUND FREUD in/to life” –later on, inspiring ‘bring freud ins leben’, another work crow made as part of a public billboard project in vienna. anything else?

jake and dinos chapman: ‘fun & games’ / ‘bring me the head of…’ after some italian art dealer / gallerist refused to show the chapman’s / their work, they decapitated their ‘daddy chapman’ sculpture (a dept-store window-display dummy head –with dildo phalluses on the nose and chin), which 2 porno queens were filmed finding and making gainful employment with. anything else (like remaking ‘fucking hell’ after saatchi / momart fire)?

claire fontaine: ‘nurseryworld’. pre “claire fontaine” site and trophy salvage to an empty derelict building –coming to nothing when upon arrival with equipment needed –the building was no longer there anymore, having been demolished to make way for the garden area of some luxury home developments. however, this added to many of the original concerns, hopes and interests the artist had in the name of the premises and issues arising. a photo of the exterior, a written and recorded prose text by douglas park (i, me, myself!), a remake of the shopsign and (possibly?) a miniature model of the building exist (and other material / work?). anything else?

coum transmissions / genesis p orridge: mid 1970’s obscene mail prosecution court case (as public art event) and dossier bookwork, ‘gpo versus gpo’ / ‘postal event’ (published by ecart, geneva –much more recently since reprinted by some canadian outfit) of documentation generated. not long after, displaying ensuing press cuttings writing up their even more notorious swansong exhibition, ‘prostitution’ at the ica –of which they / others said “press cuttings about press cuttings”! also, when coum transmissions became the avant garde band, throbbing gristle (which soon replaced their art practice), their debut album ‘2nd annual report’ / ‘music from the death factory’ (1977) ended up with brief outbursts of creepy orchestral (auschwitz?) chamber-music whenever theres no sound otherwise between and within different tracks –because the master-tape was a found recording –and throbbing gristle and the pressing plant had no choice but to keep it. anything else?

simon cutts: ‘homage to homage to georges seurat’. archived correspondence between cutts and the arts council of great britain over deteriorating quality and condition of cutts’ ‘homage to georges seurat’ print (using “hundreds and thousands”!) and attempted problem solving. updating his “found poem” (lifted from ‘guantanamera’ lyrics!), ‘i prefer the streams of the mountain to the sea’, by adding “still” between “i” and “prefer” (also, the variations on that with ian hamilton finlay). anything else?

tacita dean: ‘stowaway’. objects (newspaper boats and hats) made using news coverage of dean’s work of the same name (appropriately!) disappearing in transit. anything else?

braco dimitrejevic versus goran “artiste anonyme” trbuljak: ‘sculpture made by tihomir simic, zagreb’. documentary photographs and (now bronzed) relic. work named after the unsuspecting member of the public (tihomir simic) who unknowingly made and signed the work for dimitrejevic, trbuljak and other members of their collective (also named after tihomir simic). since then, ‘sculpture made by tihomir simic, zagreb’ has been claimed and shown as being by both dimitrejevic and trbuljak –which becomes ironic but fitting given facts that importance, authorship and value were deliberately addressed, the involvement of tihomir simic in making the artefact –and it was part of a group venture. also, dimitrejevic made a constructivist / dada / merz / scrapbook looking collage out of ephemera with the name of one of the “casual passers by” he featured on some public billboard and / or monument. stories etc about the owners of artefacts appearing in dimitrejevic’s ‘triptychos post historicus’ still-lives playing games with works in museum collections. anything else (by dimitrejevic and / or trbuljak)?

chris dorley-brown: series of otherwise ordinary photos of social housing –one suite made many years before the more recent others. the 1st group depict london social-housing (recorded for semi-official commission), then much later dorley-brown revisited the very same vantage points and scenes to remake the compositions according to identical formulæ –only also including every plus and minus since. symptoms bearing witness to social, political, economic and cultural changes happening over the interim period. anything else (given dorley-brown’s preoccupation with representing passage of time)?

max ernst: ‘the return of the belle gardener’. late career painting celebrating the rediscovery of ernst’s earlier ‘belle gardener’, which was seized for the nazi ‘entartete kunst’ show. anything else?

ian hamilton finlay: publications / propaganda / editions / ephemera / artwork / media coverage etc connected to hamilton finlay’s various “wars” against artworld figures and officialdom agencies. anything else?

general idea: legal dispute with ‘life’ magazine over general idea’s ‘file’ periodical –and the (at least 1) “reformed” number (any ensuing work / material?). work / documentation about the burning down of their ‘miss general idea 1984 pavillion’. anything else?

iqbal geoffrey: t.v satirical documentary (on pakistani t.v –and maybe elsewhere?) protesting geoffrey’s “unfair dismissal” (and racial etc discrimination?) at the hands of the national gallery in london after attempting to become their artist in residence. also related public urination event and relic (perfume bottle). dispute with hayward gallery london over loss of work. anything else?

hans haacke: additions added to work presenting information about investigations into provenance of an old master painting. any work (not just mention in publications) charting events occurring after 1st showing of ‘der pralinenmeister’ (exposee into peter ludwig’s chocolate business empire and art collecting)? open letters (in art periodicals etc) about furore over haacke’s work pulled from nyc show. anything else?

raymond hains: salvador dali / avidas dollar croissant “moustache” etc debacle etc. anything else?

hi red center: emballage / empaquette objects, artefacts (such as printing plates etc) and posters (published by fluxus editions) connected to the action against them and subsequent trial for forged ¥ banknotes. anything else by hi red center / ex / solo members?

gary hume: early ‘90’s questionnaire, requesting opinions, suggestions and advice about possible improvements to his work (at that time, mostly large scale and glossy polytychs of skull-like hospital doors). interestingly, not long afterwards, hume quit such almost abstract trademark paintings -in favour of his still glossy, but more imagistic pop icons. karsten schubert (hume’s then london gallery) let hume go –only for hume’s new departure to become more successful than ever before. anything else?

image bank: an art collective –which became better known and more successful as a corporate / communications industry serving archive / agency. any specific works / materials, related to this changeover?

alan jones: including newsclippings and satirical cartoons of jones’ fetish maid 3 piece suite furniture in his own work (such as the 1970’s print portfolio, ‘ways and means’). any other work?

robin klassnik: work (in what media?) charting klassnik’s (real / fictitious / remade?) hunt / quest / search for lost work/s. anything else?

john latham: request to return missing library book and letter of dismissal (for latham and other’s damage to same book) in ‘art & culture’. anything else?

george maciunas: ephemera about maciunas’ property conflicts with new york legal system and underworld. anything else?

man ray: retitling his replacement of ‘object to be destroyed’ (and any subsequent editioned replicas), as ‘indestructable object’ (or was that the other way around?). anything else?

marcel marien: remake of work, ‘la morte qui ne passe’, (‘death doesn’t go by’), which marien opined was stolen for the egg-timer hour-glass component (from an anecdote entered in marien’s ‘abandon ship!’). anything else?

robert morris: ‘statement of æsthetic withdrawal’. frame containing engraved lead relief depicting front and side plan view of morris’s previous work ‘litanies’ (another lead relief, with a bunch of keys, each with a duchampian reference or quote engraved on it and their impression) alongside legal documents hereby reclaiming or denouncing any merit or worth from ‘litanies’. everything described as “exhibits” (as though legal and forensic evidence). morris made ‘statement of æsthetic withdrawal’ in reaction to phillip johnson (architect and collector) deciding to keep ‘litanies’ –but not pay for it –on the grounds it was not art. ‘statement of æsthetic withdrawal’ was given to johnson by morris (like the shirt off his back!). much later, both works were donated to moma nyc johnson (whether or not either or both of them are art –and / or johnson is architect and / or his work counts as architecture!). presumably theres now much more specific and focused interest in ‘statement of æsthetic withdrawl’ than in ‘litanies –due to more conceptual nature and engagement and use of factors in society. anything else (maybe linked to his ill fated and much satirised obstacle course / MISadventure FOULplayground at the tate gallery london in the early 70’s etc)?

meret oppenheim: upon being invited by a gallerist to make editioned replicas of her earlier and best-known work, the fur-lined teacup, saucer and spoon (which overshadowed most of the rest of oppenheim’s work), oppenheim accepted, but instead designed and kitschy framed icon –with a furry motif of a teacup, saucer and spoon. anything else?

douglas park (and serial collaborative partners-in-crime): artwork (collage / text etc) about an idea of park’s used (neither consulted, accredited or paid) by another more exposed and successful artist –who was involved in the same project where the same work had appeared. douglas park’s text and ronee hui’s image both ruined on hui’s pages in the 2003 sharjah biennale book. anything else?

tom phillips: residual and secondary paintings based on and caused by ongoing work in progress (and images of earlier work referred to –but not for obvious reasons –if that makes any sense / comes across properly –concerned with time and process?). anything else?

anne-marie & patrick poirier: decision to leave an interfered with / rearranged / vandalised work (one of their pseudo archæological / classical / antiquity fragments / remains / finds) in that same state or even act upon it –thereafter often making and presenting some of those works in that manner (as a cairn / pile / mound). anything else?

robert rauschenburg: following the advice of an italian critic, gathering some unsold work –and throwing them off a certain bridge into a certain river. anything else?

jean-pierre raynaud: was raynaud’s demolition of his own self-built house (very like the background interior setting of a francis bacon panting, 1 of raynaud’s own ‘psycho objects’ and an ancestor / prophecy of damien hirst’s clinical / medical / hospital chic) brought about because of some personal change / externally imposed conditions? photos, video / film footage, ‘the ‘la maison’ wheeled bucket “relics” etc. anything else?

ad reinhardt: when a museum complained that one of reinhardt’s black on black (pure / invisible / standard etc) paintings was damaged accidentally and needed restoration, reinhardt recommended / offered / gave them a new / existing painting –alongside some aphoristic advice, claiming it looked even more like the work they had than it ever could have done itself (perhaps based on some much earlier exchange between pablo picasso and gertrude stein about picasso’s portrait of stein and stein herself one day looking like each other). anything else (some of his and others aphorisms about art were in answer to each other)?

kurt ryslavy: establishing an austrian wine business (the 1st in belgium and amongst the earliest outside austria) after importing and serving some austrian wine in belgium as part of an art project / event / show. since then, ryslavy’s practice and life as an artist and (austrian) wine merchant have been intertWINEd as one (or wine) and the same.

richard serra: documentation (original photographs, artwork, publications and mainstream media coverage) charting the removal and destruction of serra’s controversial ‘tilted arc’ public sculpture. anything else?

terry smith? ‘stolen property’. when terry smith was 1 of the selected invitees visiting the former-power station that’s now the tate modern, smith remembered that his uncle had worked there and deemed it to be a totalitarian environs. most of smith’s work were wall drawings, often using imagery and objects found en situ (the burnt remains of a ladder, a drawn and annotated plan of an old fishing boat etc). however, as well as these commissioned and official works, executed at the site and only recorded by photographs and working drawings, smith also removed and kept door fittings (locks, bolts, handles, keyholes etc). ‘stolen property’ is shown in plastic bags a la seized artefacts / court-case exhibits etc. anything else?

austin osman spare: declining offer of portraiture commission from adolf hitler –in favour of replying with a photo where spare parodied hitler’s parting and moustache, accompanied by a waspish message denouncing hitler from spare’s maverick occultist and esoteric worldview. anything else?

daniel spoerri: before and after photos of 1 of spoerri’s ‘tableaux piege’ assemblages (remains of meals preserved on tabletops) which vermin and other parasites had eaten much of (unclear if the work was ever restored). anything else?

survival research laboratories: once, before srl were about to stage 1 of their automata and pyrotechnic spectacles, they heard that some people planned to watch from a bridge nearby, instead of paying to attend (and perhaps being at risk from the show itself). srl treated the pavements of this bridge with chemicals which would emit stench so powerfully vile and fowl as to deter people from spending time near them. anything else?

joe tilson: wooden sculpture remade –because a fanatic obsessive had stolen the original. anything else?

jeffrey vallance: as a student work, having a frozen chicken given a funeral and buried in a pet cemetery, claiming it to have been his pet, “blinky the friendly chicken”. years later (by which time vallance became a successful artist and partial celebrity –and the grave and pet cemetery gained some cult status) vallance had “blinky the friendly chicken” exhumed for a forensic autopsy and post-mortem in an attempt to establish cause of death and conditions occurring since. the original bookwork vallance put out 1st time round was reprinted, with all the new material. The 2nd revised edition also charts vallance’s moving onto more profound and deep concerns (mysticism, myth, ritual, conspiracy theory, the supernatural, anthropology etc). later retrieval of his decorated power switches and points from the museum where he illegally planted them. anything else?

erica van horn: ‘fragments of an abortive collaboration’, bookwork. anything else?

lamonte young: a power-cut and / or unpaid bill causing an “entr’acte” for young’s otherwise “eternal music”. anything else?

possible candidates:

billy apple (barry bates)?

rasheed araeen: any works by araeen as being one of the 1st true minimalists –despite being in the u.k, non-western and an “outsider”. anything else?

conrad atkinson: any work about backlashes against works?

j.s.g. boggs: any work about ongoing legal problems over boggs’ hand-made / home-grown money?

maurizio cattellan?

guglielmo achille cavellini?

gino de dominicis?

marcel duchamp?

piero gilardi?

kendell geers?

richard hamilton?

michael landy?

mali: any work about a local business / advertising company putting out an ad strangely similar to mali’s work of waves with his own self-portrait profile. anything else?

gordon matta-clark: setbacks and / or outcomes to matta-clark’s “anarchitecture” interventions cutting up (and / or “editing”) empty buildings. anything else?

bjaarne melgaard: work about proposals / works / shows pulled on legal / health, safety and hygiene / public decency etc grounds.

david medalla: given inter-referentialism to much of his work –and more specifically the tate refusing to pay for his ‘sand machine’ mobile and / or returning it etc?

gustav metzger?

dieter roth?

santiago sierra?

colin self: work about self’s difficult path / status and / or the destruction of his guard dog tableaux by customs officials and/ or anything else?

pauline smith: original artwork / editioned ephemera about police action over smith’s ‘adolf hitler fanclub’ and ‘lost-marbles dump’ mail art activities?

sturtevant: the custard pie in sturtevant’s face whilst performing her mock joseph beuys ‘aktion’, legal problems with claes oldenburg over her ‘store’ remake, joseph beuys estate problems, anything else?

ben vautier?

lucy wood?

any artist/s and / or collective/s with names starting with “Z”? that way, at least the 1st and last letters will be like bookends.

forgotten / unknown names:

scandanavian artist who kept / framed / showed / sold court orders etc re: his theft and sale of antique furniture etc from a museum (as his “contribution” to a show he was in there). same artist who did stereoscopic views of himself squinting cross-eyed and / or with his head in motion.

czech painter based in the netherlands who uses multiple paintings he’s working simultaneously on to make and process each other (in addition to or instead of brushes and other implements). at least some of them partly look like the early t.v signal / organic propeller pictures by lawrence weiner.

douglasrpark@hotmail.com
© Douglas Park, 2008