Art I Like

Artist's Shit by Piero Manzoni

Tate online:

In May 1961, while he was living in Milan, Piero Manzoni produced ninety cans of Artist's Shit. Each was numbered on the lid 001 to 090. Tate's work is number 004. A label on each can, printed in Italian, English, French and German, identified the contents as '"Artist's Shit", contents 30gr net freshly preserved, produced and tinned in May 1961.'

In December 1961 Manzoni wrote in a letter to the artist Ben Vautier: 'I should like all artists to sell their fingerprints, or else stage competitions to see who can draw the longest line or sell their shit in tins. The fingerprint is the only sign of the personality that can be accepted: if collectors want something intimate, really personal to the artist, there's the artist's own shit, that is really his.'

It is not known exactly how many cans of Artist's Shit were sold within Manzoni's lifetime, but a receipt dated 23 August 1962 certifies that Manzoni sold one to Alberto Lùcia for 30 grams of 18-carat gold.

The League Of Resonance

Latest Maling project.

The League of Resonance seeks out the intangible and barely perceptible. We detect vibrations that form the backdrop to the mythical narrative of daily life. We situate ourselves in places of intrigue, we listen, we talk, we connect and we hum. In collecting and combining the resonance of individuals: their stories, perceptions and rituals, we unravel the backdrop to this myth. Together we create a new sound. This sound is The League of Resonance.

Robert Guth

Old friend from high school (also by coincidence a mutual friend of Freakley's).

He is to blame for first introducing me to the term "relational aesthetics" in 2007 whilst telling me about his PhD project, which involves mounting events at which he hands out loaves of self-baked bread in exchange for whatever participants think they're worth, documenting the exchange, then exhibiting the documentation and the objects received.

From recent FB event blurb:

"Bring whatever you think a loaf of bread is worth down to the SmithDick venue in the bus interchange and swap it. It’s up to you – a toaster or tea cup, an old TV or maybe even a piece of art. We won’t question your sense of value; if you say it’s worth BREAD then it is worth BREAD.

Besides the joy of BREAD why is this happening? Why is this art, not a bakery? Robert makes artworks that encourage the viewer to think about the value of their time, stuff and money. He likes baking bread and has found a way to use his passion as part of his art making and PhD project at the ANU School of Art.

This artwork is part of his research in to how participants (people who like BREAD) value objects and participation. You may be documented and chatted to when you come down for your BREAD."

Canberra Times article about above event. Piece by Robert about the project.

Gilbert And George

"The pair regard themselves as "living sculptures". They refuse to disassociate their art from their everyday lives, insisting that everything they do is art."

Tracy Emin

"A poster she photocopied and put up around her home when her cat Docket went missing became an object collected by people, but was excluded by Emin from her canon."

Len Lye

(Via Paul Rodgers.)

Wikipedia entry. BFI Screenonline bio.

Neither of these really express what was so awesome about him, but this doco does.

Luke Hand

I first met Luke in 2008 after being introduced to his apparently now dormant musical project Dizzygiggles by a mutual friend. I gave him a copy of The Mishukis' Everyone's Too Stupid and he reciprocated by sending me a double-sided CD of his songs ingeniously fashioned from two CDs hand-glued together, with a personalised sleeve written on what appeared to be toilet paper. Since my old toploader died I can't play it anymore, but it's still a treasured possession.

Back then he was, like me, working in a market research callcentre; these days he's studying Sound Art at RMIT. Last year he produced an audio collage intended to convey the ambiance of a football match which was played over the loudspeakers at the MCG as part of Sports Club 2: The Arena for Next Wave.

More recent projects include calculating the metrics of a bag of chips, painstakingly re-rendering page one of the September 12, 2001 edition of the New York Times at 8x life-size in colour pencil, producing an album of original sound pieces based on The Telegraph's laughably pretentious track-by-track review of the new Radiohead album, etc, etc, etc, etc. His phone seems to be a fairly significant tool of his practice, which of course we like.

Marina Abramović

(Via Duncan.)

Wikipedia:

Active for over three decades, she has recently begun to describe herself as the “grandmother of performance art". Abramović's work explores the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind.

Proposition

by Paul Knight (via RH).

"Would you have sex with a stranger?

This is the Proposition:

Proposition is looking for two brave adults with a sense of adventure. You can be any age, gender or sexual preference.

We encourage your involvement and input.

The date has been set. Two people is all it takes!

Sunday the 17th of October, 2010.

Sound intruiging? Would you simply like to know more?

Please get in touch!"

Jason Maling (redux)

(Previously.)

His recent projects, Triangulation (in collaboration with Torie Nimervoll) and The Vorticist warrant an entry of their own.

Age article about The Vorticist.

Blog entries of mine about Triangulation, as mounted at the Abbotsford Convent in February 2010 and Melbourne Central shopping centre in August 2010.

Review I wrote of the two projects for school.