Dream Exhibitions is a new weekly series that asks artists, writers, curators, and other creative types what as-yet unrealized exhibition they’d like to see. Each week, we publish three to five new submissions. Everyone’s invited, so dream a big dream, and send it our way. (Corinna Kirsch, corinna@artfcity.com)
Instruction manuals get ripped to shreds in this week’s edition of Dream Exhibitions. From art fairs to installation techniques, all this week’s submissions play with how-not-to do what we already know how-to do.
Wil Murray, artist
Damien Hirst’s entire Natural History series permanently installed at any outdoor waterpark. The installation would need to be done by Blue Incredible Plumbing Hulk, and without outside instruction. The waterpark should be located far enough north that it is only open seasonally. Plumbing Hulk’s install budget must be uncapped. Might be even better if Plumbing Hulk could travel back in time to the mid-nineties and install the show then.
Arden Sherman, curator, author of Mise en green
Many of this fall’s exhibitions have been vibrant, bright, sensorial, interactive (Turrell at Guggenheim, Kusama at Zwiner, Burden at New Museum, et cetera.). It’s left me wondering, where’s all the dark art? Lately I’ve been a little obsessed with society’s underbelly and in unpacking this topic, I realize the bad stuff all pretty much lives somewhere deep in the vortex of the Internet or on Channel 9 nightly news. For my dream exhibition, I call to artists to let their inner-devil surface and take a moment to investigate some crooked and dirty deeds (without getting locked-up).
Nightmare Exhibition: Fright Night Meets Cropsey
Location: Staten Island. In lieu of Rikers Island, we must go to Staten Island.
Getting there: You’ll have take the Staten Island Ferry, but admission to the exhibition is contingent on you not paying the MTA for your travel. So get good at jumping over turnstiles or getting someone on the other side to push that emergency exit open for you. You can also drive and take the Verrazano Bridge but better blast through that toll booth—‘cause ain’t nobody got time for $15 tolls!
Installation: Flea market/carnival style, open-air booths with artist’s projects. There’s no animals allowed except participating fighting roosters and dogs. You’ll notice upon entry Takashi Murakami jizz sculptures are scattered throughout the premises along with a Paul McCarthy donkey-fucking sculpture and Maurizio Cattelan’s Pope knocked over by a giant boulder sculpture—the really big one. On loudspeakers placed throughout the exhibition, the soundtrack from Vito Acconci’s Seedbed performance will be looping.
Artists’ Project Booths:
– Swastika and pentagram knuckle tattoos by Duke Riley
– How to jet ski scam in Thailand by Rirkrit Tiravanija
– How to make a bomb by Hito Steyerl
– Test your skin care products on animals by Marilyn Minter
– Potato guns by Olafur Eliasson
– Make your own taser that also doubles as a really bright flashing light by Liz Magic Laser
– Sour milk-drinking contests by Jordan Wolfson
– Littering plastic shit from China by Song Dong
– Dog fights by Vito Schnabel (He’s just here to help out.)
– Rooster fights by Allora & Calzadilla
– Bootleg DVDs by Kate Gilmore
– A real meth lab by Justin Lowe and Jonah Freeman
– Infant swapping by Vanessa Beecroft
– Inhale massive amounts of helium by Matthew Barney
– Really loud drums and screaming Wiccan chants by Tauba Auerbach
– How to dispose of crude oil into the Hudson by Hiroshi Sugimoto
– Pickpocket lessons by Roman Ondak
– How to decorate endangered trees with gum by Dan Colen
– Camouflaged land mines by Andy Goldsworthy
– Flaming bow-and-arrow shooting contests by E.V. Day
– How to destroy a hotel room (or any good room) by Cyprien Gaillard
– And there will be vegan, gluten-free hotdogs on sale by James Franco, if he is awake.
Oh, and the guy in trench coat walking around selling hot Rolex and other high-quality watches is Christian Marclay.
Ripley Whiteside, artist
I would love to see a show that brought together all of the different paintings made by amateur artists that were based on the same set of explicit instructions, like from Walter T. Foster books or Bob Ross TV shows. It would be best if it was comprehensive: thousands of versions of the same painting made by different people.
{ 9 comments }
Meteorite, tho.
Ah! Added a link to the “boulder” version of the Pope story. http://www.wmagazine.com/culture/art-and-design/2011/11/maurizio-cattelan-retrospective-guggenheim/
Ripley’s suggestion is great.
I met a former socialite cum cutting horse trainer in Texas last month who had two versions of this painting: http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/forest-fire-a-salsich.jpg that she had bought in two different cities decades apart. She had tons of art on her walls, but this mysterious pairing was her favourite by far. As far as I can figure, it must have been an exercise from a painting course sometime in the 60s or 70s….or some kind f X-files shared vision. I dream of an exhibition of every iteration of that painting next door to Ripley’s.
A more sober internet search brought me here: http://www.foresthistory.org/publications/FHT/FHTFall2008/UntamedArt.pdf
Arden:
ok I want the comment to say this: “What about John Baldessari burning fire paintings!”
Arden: a booth
Fischelli & Weiss burning a picture of John Baldessari burning fire paintings.[Arden isn’t on Facebook so I’m posting her comments made on gchat by proxy]
Why John Baldessari? Isn’t that Sinead O’Connor’s job? Maybe this just points to a very important issue, namely: Who is the biggest burner in the art world? That’s a question in need of an answer.
The biggest burner in art! Great motto. well, I think you gotta have Cai Guo-Qiang in mind…he would be in any top 3 on this matter, for sure – although he is actually more into fireworks and explosions, ok. Did I said explosions? someone call Roman Signer! 😉
Staten Island Ferry is free…
Yeah you’re right, it’s free. But for the 8 million of us who live nowhere near the dock in lower MNHTN, we must take that lovely Subway. So don’t pay for that OK? This is MY dream!
Comments on this entry are closed.