Hans-Ulrich Obrist’s New Do It Video Tells You to Do It With Social Media

by Corinna Kirsch on April 29, 2014 Blurb

Still from the Do It promo video.

Still from the Do It promo video. You can watch it over on Vimeo.

Do It, Hans-Ulrich Obrist’s long-running instructions-based curatorial project takes viral curating to the next extreme with a flashy promotional video that makes art look stupid. It’s got loud sound effects, a hip-hop soundtrack, and you get to see people going bonkers with spray paint and a woman twirling around in a bra. All the while, comedian and musician Reggie Watts provides a booming voice repeating the mantra to “Do it.” Art—it’s sooooo crazy and cool, right?

Independent Curators International Director Renaud Proch told T Magazine he hopes the video will go viral. As if the video weren’t self-serving enough. It ends with a plea: “Today, you can even do it on Instagram, Vine, Twitter, Facebook. You can do it on the ground or you can do it in the cloud. What matters is that you do it.”

If you’re convinced by rhyming “ground” with “cloud,” then by all means, “Do it.”

But why should we do it? Do It is an art project without much of a payoff; you’re performing artists’ instructions, and the only reason why those instructions are worth doing is because famous artists came up with them. Performance art is full of this, where audiences are dictated to participate for the sake of participating in an art project—Clifford Owens, the Marina Abramovic Institute, Philippe Quesne—as if this were an end in itself.

 But this time you should remember to Vine it. And while you’re at it, you should remember to type out #doitINTL, the official Do It hashtag. Or maybe add the hashtag of one of the artists who’ve submitted to Do It. I’ve provided the full list of those 250 artists below. So get to work promoting other people’s projects!

Marina Abramović, Etel Adnan, Sophia Al Maria, Pawel Althamer, Amalia Pica, Carl Andre, Kathryn Andrews, Uri Aran, Cory Arcangel, John Armleder, Robert Ashley, David Askevold, Ed Atkins, Tarek Atoui, Lutz Bacher, Darren Bader, Nairy Baghramian, John Baldessari, Matthew Barney, Yto Barrada, Robert Barry, Gianfranco Baruchello, Jérôme Bel, Kim Beom, Bernadette Corporation, Gerry Bibby, Dara Birnbaum, Mel Bochner, Christian Boltanski, Iñaki Bonillas, Louise Bourgeois, Geta Bratescu, Joan Brossa, Daniel Buren, Waltercio Caldas, Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, Mircea Cantor, Antonio Caro, Maurizio Cattelan, John Chamberlain, Paul Chan, Boris Charmatz, Chu Yun, Jay Chung, Hélène Cixous, Lygia Clark, Amy E. Cohen and Francisco J. Varela, Douglas Coupland, Meg Cranston, Critical Art Ensemble, Minerva Cuevas, Jeroen de Rijke and Willem de Rooij, Tacita Dean, Wilson Díaz, Diller + Scofidio, do it tv, Trisha Donnelly, Jimmie Durham, Maria Eichorn, Olafur Eliasson, Elmgreen & Dragset, Tracey Emin, Ayse Erkmen, Cerith Wyn Evans, Mathias Faldbakken, Cao Fei, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Feng Mengbo, Fischli & Weiss, Claire Fontaine, William Forsythe, Simone Forti, Hreinn Fridfinnsson, Yona Friedman, Simon Fujiwara, Theaster Gates, Paul-Armand Gette, Jef Geys, Gilbert & George, Simryn Gill, Liam Gillick,Édouard Glissant, Leon Golub, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Douglas Gordon, Dan Graham, Rodney Graham, Konstantin Grcic, Joseph Grigely, Ulrike Grossarth, Gu Dexin, Marie-Ange Guilleminot, Shilpa Gupta, Anna Halprin, Richard Hamilton, Harsha NS, Mona Hatoum, Federico Herrero, Anthony Hill, Maria Teresa Hincapie, Roger Hiorns, Damien Hirst, Shere Hite, Nicholas Hlobo, Carsten Holler, Jonathan Horowitz, Hu Fang, Huang Yong Ping,Pierre Huyghe, Fabrice Hybert, Cristina Iglesias, Joan Jonas, Ilya Kabakov, Stephen Kaltenbach, Allan Kaprow, Mike Kelley, Hassan Khan, Ben Kinmont, Ragnar Kjartansson, Alison Knowles, Aaron Koblin, Terence Koh, Jiří Kolář, Julius Koller, Koo Jeong-A, Surasi Kusolwong, Suzanne Lacy, David Lamelas, Adriana Lara, Bertrand Lavier, Xavier Le Roy, Kemang Wa Lehulere, Sol LeWitt, Klara Liden,Erik van Lieshout, Lucy R. Lippard, Liu Ding, Liu Wei, Thomas Lommée, Aníbal López, Lee Lozano, Lu Chunsheng, Sarah Lucas,David Lynch, Jorge Macchi, Tobias Madison, Mark Manders, Christian Marclay, Enzo Mari, Eva Marisaldi, Chris Marker, Helen Marten, Paul McCarthy, Cildo Meireles, Jonas Mekas, Annette Messager, Olaf Metzel, John Miller, Andrei Monastyrski, Robert Morris, Valérie Mréjen, Otto Mühl, Eileen Myles, Jean-Luc Nancy, Deimantas Narkevičius, Bruce Nauman, Ernesto Neto, Rivane Neuenschwander, Max Neuhaus, Albert Oehlen, Roman Ondák, Yoko Ono, Füsun Onur, Damián Ortega, Fernando Ortega, Clifford Owens, Nam June Paik, Pak Sheung-Chueng, Charlemagne Palestine, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Lygia Pape, Nicolás Paris, Philippe Parreno, Marko Peljhan, Cesare Pietroiusti, Adrian Piper, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Marjetica Potrč, Cedric Price, Raqs Media Collective, Casey E. B. Reas, David Reed, Tobias Rehberger, Pedro Reyes, Jason Rhoades, Pipilotti Rist, David Robbins, Adrián Villar Rojas, Ugo Rondinone, Martha Rosler, Ed Ruscha, Claude Rutault, Anri Sala, Eszter Salamon, Tomás Saraceno, Julião Sarmento, Dimitar Sasselov, Peter Saville, Tomas Schmit, Thomas Schütte, Tino Sehgal, Sejima Kazuyo, Hassan Sharif, Jim Shaw, Rupert Sheldrake, Shimabuku, Gabriel Sierra, Alexandre Singh, Andreas Slominski, Michael Smith, Michael E. Smith, Nancy Spero, Bruce Sterling, Mladen Stilinović, Sturtevant, Hugo Suter, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Tone Yasunou, Mario Garcia Torres,Ryan Trecartin, Rosemarie Trockel, Agnes Varda, Anton Vidokle, Tris Vonna-Michell, Franz Erhard Walther, Wang Jianwei, Wang Wei, Hannah Weinberger, Lawrence Weiner, Ai Weiwei, Richard Wentworth, Franz West, Emmett Williams, Gil Wolman, Erwin Wurm, Xu Tan, Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong, and Zheng Guogu

 

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