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Bruce High Quality Foundation, "Teach 4 Amerika", 2011

Text below from the 20×200 newsletter. Buy the print here.

New-art-for-a-great-cause greetings, collectors! Today we’re taking a vacation from the holiday vacation and going back to school in style with Teach 4 Amerika* (school bus), an edition by the Bruce High Quality Foundation.

The anonymous Brooklyn-based artist collective is most memorably known for their public art hijinks and DIY production of Cats. Critic Jerry Saltz dubbed them “human bullshit detectors,” which is also an apt description of Art Fag City. Founded by the indefatigable Paddy Johnson, the blog has been dishing out hilariously irreverent “art news, reviews and gossip” since 2005. Sales of this edition will directly benefit AFC and the independent criticism it serves up daily.

*Teach 4 Amerika was sponsored by Creative Time. Teach 4 Amerika, The Bruce High Quality Foundation and Creative Time are not affiliated with or licensed, endorsed, approved or sponsored by Teach for America.

*Not affiliated with Rob Pruitt.

So how do 20×200 and AFC come together with a stretch limo school bus parked in front of Chris Burden’s lamppost forest at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art? Well, the Bruce High Quality Foundation was “created to foster an alternative to everything,” a mission that resonates with AFC’s position as an alternative to mainstream art news. “We are a platform for the art world’s most rigorous debate, and we invite everyone to participate,” says Johnson. “What we are encouraging and fostering is in essence the process of self-education in public. 20×200 is also very much engaged in this process.”

AFC readers may recall the blog’s first collaboration with BHQF, an early post in IMG MGMT, a widely lauded, image-based essay series written by artists. This edition represents the evolution of the group’s political and collaborative work since that 2008 video statement on public art. Earlier this year, members of the collective hit the road in this luxe Teach 4 Amerika limo-bus. Stopping at schools around the country, they instigated conversations about the future of MFA education—serious dialogues mixed with balloons, confetti and marching bands.

Meanwhile, Art Fag City will use proceeds from this benefit edition to continue adding to its mix. Until recently, the site was a one-person operation but has been in expansion mode since early last year. “The blog now hosts a number of different voices and supports a team of five regular contributors, including Will Brand, the blog’s Editor-in-Chief, explains Johnson. “Most of these writers are unpaid, and I’d like
for that to change by the end of 2012. Giving to the 2011 AFC fundraiser gets us one step closer to achieving that goal.”

Art Fag City is a New York-based art blog dedicated to providing exposure to emerging contemporary art and under-known artists. They believe that engaging in smart, critical debate helps to better define and shape the world, and that creative production of all forms is essential.

Proceeds from the sale of this edition directly benefit Art Fag City.