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termine-archiv
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Exhibition Of Living Managers
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NCCA Moskau
NCCA - National Centre for Contemporary Arts
Zoologicheskaya street, 13
123242 Moskau
Russland
fon +7 095 - 25 40 674
ncca@ncca.ru
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Exhibition Of Living Managers (MANAGEX)
Kuratoren: Alexander Kaffka, Elena Shmatko, Marjan van Mourik
www.MANAGEX.info
Profession as art
Can profession become an art object? I think so. Professions unite humans, while a human being has constantly been focal point of arts.
Managers as art objects
If there is certain mystery in every profession, managers are definitely the secret masters who hold the keys to the modern universe… I think that’s the only explanation of their proliferation in the world today. They proliferate so widely this profession becomes not just social, but a cultural phenomenon. So, if there are doubts about managers as art objects, why don’t we go and see with our own eyes?
MANAGEX and its participants
«Exhibition of living managers» (MANAGEX) is an art project which will be held at one of leading contemporary art galleries in Moscow. Real, employed managers will become art objects of this event – those who wish to get away from office routine for one day and take part in this exhibition, which somewhat resembles the television reality-shows. In contrast to reality-shows, there are no strict requirements for the participants: they only need to be employed full-time as managers of any level, have some interest for the contemporary art, and have some patience needed to serve as an exhibit for several hours. The organizers will make the participants’ life as easy as possible. Everyone will be comfortably seated, and will be completely free to talk to visitors or be silent. Next to each participant will be a nameplate with information, just like at any gallery exhibition. Participants will be free to provide either true or fabricated information (such as name, employer, position, salary, etc.), or to provide no info at all and leave the nameplate blank, if they prefer so.
The role of the artists
To allow the public view the exhibition, the artist, as always, has done all the dirty work in his studio. Once the project concept had been elaborated, the main task was to identify potential participants. Wishing to be as objective as possible, the author only selects volunteers who showed interest his announcement posted at professional managers’ forums in the Internet. It implies the exhibits are not average, but rather art-starving managers. By placing them in the spotlight, the author completes a twofold mission: not only to grow the art dimension of managers’ order for the general public, but to cultivate the art-oriented agents within the managers community.
about the authors and the organizer
alexander kaffka (b. 1966) is artist and media consultant living in Moscow. Historian and political scientist by background, since 2001 Alexander was involved in publishing, when he founded «Avenue», an independent arts magazine. Alexander is visual artist, photographer, and also author of articles, photo and video reports on arts life for international magazines such as «Wallpaper*», and web media such as «CultureTV».
elena shmatko (b. 1969) lives and works in Moscow. Elena graduated from State Arts Academy (Kiev, Ukraine), graphic design faculty, in 1995. Since 1995 she has been a member of the International Federation of Artists. In 1997 graduated from Studio of Advertising Art of Russian Association of Advertising Agencies and Guild of Film Directors of Russian television. Now works as a free-lance artist (painting, graphics, design).
marjan van mourik (b. 1958) is artpromoter living in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The last ten years Marjan is working as a freelance curator, artpromoter and multimedia designer-artist in the field of netart. She is also founder of Target Foundation. Formerly she was owner of contemporary art gallery (Gallery van Mourik) in 1987–1994 in Rotterdam.
pr contacts: e-mail managex@artenom.com | www.managex.info
National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) www.ncca.ru
NCCA is a research organization for museum and exhibiting work, founded by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation in 1992. The Centre’s activity aims at the development of modern Russian art within the context of world creative process, and strives to establish and carry out various programs and projects in the sphere of contemporary art, architecture and design both inside the country and abroad.
Pressetext
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a brief overview of artistic background and notes on MANAGEX concept
I have compiled this brief review of living humans used as art exhibits in 20th and 21st century, to represent MANAGEX in the context of contemporary art. This material has been selected according to formal criterion of people being used as art objects, mostly in a static museum and gallery format, and is by no means exhaustive. Not included in this article are classic performances and happenings, body art, and artists who use their own bodies as objects (such as Oleg Koulik, Marina Abramovic, etc.)
My starting point is Italian artist Piero Manzoni (1933-1963). In my opinion, Manzoni is one of the most creative minds of Italian Arte Povera ("Impoverished Art"). In 1961 Manzoni showed his first "Base Magica" (Magic Base) for living sculptures. Magic Base was a plinth with footprints on it, and anybody who stood on it became a work of art. The transformation of human bodies into a "living sculpture" was made not only by the Magic Base, but also by placing artist’s signature on the bodies of people. In April 1961 in Rome Piero Manzoni began to sign people (nude models or visitors) with his name changing them into works of art, so that they would become a kind of 'living sculpture' of his work.
Manzoni's "Sculture viventi" (Living Sculptures) were completed by certificates of authenticity – documents which bore four types of stamps: a red stamp certified that the subject was a whole work of art for life; a yellow stamp limited the artistic status to a body part, while a green one meant that the individual signed was a work of art under certain circumstances (i.e. only while sleeping or running); finally a purple stamp stuck on the receipt of authenticity meant that the service was paid for.
In 1968 Argentinian artist Oscar Bony (b. 1941) exhibited “La Familia Obrera” (The Proletarian Family). Bony exhibited a son, mother and father on a pedestal in a gallery. The author paid the worker exactly twice his hourly rate.
Cuban-born American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-1996) in 1991 showed Untitled (aka Go-Go Dancing Platform). It was a large pale blue box with a string of lightbulbs; it served as a platform for a go-go dancer who performed on it for five minutes a day, dressed in a silver lame bathing suit. Untitled represented absent figure, as for the majority of time the platform remained empty. The dancer arrived daily at an undisclosed time to dance for her own pleasure, with a Walkman.
The British filmmaker Peter Greenaway in 1996 exhibited people (actors) at the Hayward Gallery in London, when he took part in the exhibition "Spellbound: Art and Film". He exhibited different 'kinds' of people each day during the course of the exhibition - one day he would have 'men with beards', another day he would have 'women with long blonde hair', another day 'men under 5'10"' etc.
In 1998 Paola Pivi (Italian, b. 1971) exhibited "100 Chinese" - a phalanx of fifty Chinese people of mixed age and gender, dressed in dark blue trousers and gray tops. They simply stood and stared for two hours.
Vanessa Beecroft (lives in USA, b. 1969 in Italy) made many works of nude female models standing in large groups, hosted by galleries throughout the world. In 1999 she displayed a group of 17 U.S. Navy commandos, dressed in white uniforms, who formed a geometrically precise human sculpture in Farris Gallery, San Diego.
Santiago Sierra (b. 1966 in Spain, lives in Mexico) made numerous exhibitions with people, often with a social message related to unemployment, immigrant labour etc. In 2004 in London he exhibited "Polyurethane Sprayed on the Backs of Ten Workers". He used ten Iraqis, who stood in line facing the wall, their heads and backs draped by black plastic sheeting. They were sprayed with polyurethane which solidified, as if Iraqis were buried alive in chemical foam. In South Korea, Sierra paid 68 people to block the main entrance to Pusan Contemporary Art Festival. Each wore a sign saying: "I am being paid 3,000 wons [twice the country's minimum wage] per hour to undertake this job."
In 2005 Gianni Motti (b. 1958 in Italy, lives in Switzerland) exhibited “Broker” at Art Basel fair. "Broker" displayed young man in a business suit seated in a waist-high cube cage coming from the wall. In fact, the person was not a real broker, but a Swiss national celebrity (badminton champion.)
Notes on MANAGEX concept
Within this rich artistic background, I see MANAGEX as a project bearing certain independent significance. In our work we attach primary importance to using volunteers, who take part in the project without any material motivation, solely out of their will of being displayed preserving their professional identity. Another important aspect is to minimize our authors' influence in the process of selecting people for exhibition, which had been going automatically since the moment of publication of our announcement. However we ensure participants are indeed employed managers. We consider this preparatory period as essential part of MANAGEX project. During exhibition itself, it is important for us to provide maximum freedom of appearance and behaviour to participants, within the limits of our artistic concept. Last but not the least, the gallery exhibition per se should not be seen as the final part of MANAGEX, as we intend to further explore the applicability of living managers as art objects in traditional sense, including assessment of their art market value, their decorative potential as well as usability as collectors' items.
Alexander Kaffka
I am grateful to Jörg Heiser of Frieze Magazine and Joshua Soafer for their kind help with this compilation
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