Do It Yourself

At the UBS sponsored Long Weekend at the Tate Modern the theme was "Do it Yourself".  It is a reoccurring theme as of late, with implications beyond the Economic Crisis.  We joined in with thousands to transform an enormous mound of clay into a sculpture.  We played on Robert Morris' incredibly interactive sculptures to make an experience.  It was all a bit literally off-the-wall and the innovative spirit worked with even the most-resistant personalities (yes I am talking about you child number 1).

The "Do it Yourself" idea has lately mutated into the overarching idea of "Make".  There is a Make festival upcoming in California - see here for details.  Old-time spirit meets innovation. A great marketing umbrella that hides its capitalism under a egalitarian guise.  There must be a long German word for that.

The Make trend is on the web by instructables.com where one can learn to do just about anything.  I learned how to make a booster for my wifi router dull girl that I am.  I will issue a caution on viewing the site - one can get terribly lost looking at ridiculous things.

But, back to the Tate Modern.  Philosophically, the legacy of 1960's performance and action-based artworks was a lean toward a utopian vision of experience that was self-created and free.  It was anti-consumerist consumerism.  And we are back there again.

Realities Helmet?

Artworks That Ideas Can Buy

"Artworks that ideas can buy" is the title of an exhibition by Cesare Pietroiusti in the project room at Wilkinson Gallery.  Works by Jeremy Deller, Dara Birnbaum and notable others will be for sale in exchange for visitors' ideas.  Interested?  The exhibition opens on the 29th of May.

Questioning the value of contemporary art and its exchange mechanisms is a thread that has been alive and well, coming high above the surface with conceptual art in the 70's.  It is a subversion of the question "what is art" raised by Duchamp with his "fountain".

The value of art is undergoing quite a bit of analysis these days.  Alongside the value of money and the value of British politicians.  But I digress.  Major collections of contemporary art have historically had the generous support of the financial world.  The Frieze Art fair is sponsored by Deutsche Bank.  UBS has been a generous partner of the Tate Modern.  Fingers crossed for this to continue.

On the exit side, several prominent collections are up for sale as noted in the FT here and here.  It's fairly easy to guess which Spanish bank is in process of raising cash by selling off its collection.

So back to "Artworks that ideas can buy".  What other cultural goods can be "had" by the exchange of ideas?  It is self-referential.  Ideas of course.  And that is art with a capital A, no matter what its form.

Make room for a new storm of conceptualism in the contemporary art world.  The economics are ripe for it.  I can already picture the UBS sponsored Salon of Ideas in the Turbine Hall.