artout.org blog

Artout wishes the best in this holiday season!

2010-12-21T03:31:00.001-08:00

ARTOUT in Buenos Aires

2010-12-05T05:51:00.000-08:00

ARTOUT had a blast presenation in Buenos Aires in Alvear Palace Hotel. It has two new representatives in Latin America - Laura Bilbao (girl in red t-shirt) and Renata Cozupone (girl in black dress). We welcome Laura and Renata!

GOOD NEWS

2010-12-03T05:58:00.000-08:00

We are happy to inform our agency's clients, friends and participants that the French Court had recently found accusations leveled against Artout Escort Service by Parsons Paris Schol of Design, unfounded, and their acts against us - unlawful, and condemned the school to pay compensation for moral damages. In 2007, President of AFAD/Parsons Paris School of Design accused the project's founder to run a potentially criminal business. At the time the school was an affilaite of the New School University in New York.

ARTOUT in Berlin

2010-09-27T12:36:00.000-07:00

Artout on EinheitFM in Berlin

ARTOUT in Berlin 24 September 2010

2010-09-14T14:43:00.000-07:00

Artout Project Maas Media Verlag and SideBySide Studio, Berlin, present Artout project. The same night, Artout will launch its first e-book edition by Maas Media Verlag.

24 September at 21:00
Rumbalotte
MetzerStraße 9
10405, Berlin

Join us for the night of intellectual discussion with the wild partying to follow.

PRESS RELEASE

2010-06-08T16:16:00.001-07:00

New ARTOUT CEO

ARTOUT is proud to announce the appointment of artist and curator I-Wei Lee as its new Chief Executive Officer.

Born in Taiwan, I-Wei grew up in Canada. She graduated from Simon Fraser University with degree in business. For six years she worked as a banker in Africa, but later went to study art. In 2006 I-Wei graduated from Goldsmiths College .

In 2009, I-Wei moved to Berlin and established the SideBySide Studio. I-Wei positions herself as a ‘contexterin’ – someone whose goal is to generate a new context each time in each project. The artistic experience for her is an overall experience that queries all aspects of life.  

As a curator, I-Wei seeks to highlight the approaches, viewpoints, and visions of contemporary artists.  

As a producer, she animates events where intellectuals and artists are invited to share their critical reflections on current social issues.  

As an artist, she commits herself to experimental and documentary films, multi-media installations, and interactive performances.

At ARTOUT, I-Wei will be responsible for developing the project alongside its original managing team. This new appointment reflects the continuous growth of the ARTOUT project, and opens a new and exciting page in the ARTOUT adventure.

I-Wei Li's website

I-Wei Li

Mike Rimbaud's New CD on Sale at Amazon

2010-05-15T05:01:00.000-07:00

For all of you Mike's fans, you can order his new CD here

ARTOUT COPYCAT in France?

2010-04-07T04:20:00.000-07:00

We recently learned that a French association launched their service "In bed with my artist" not long ago. The service allows collectors to spend time with artists for a fee.

New Artout Participant

2010-03-13T14:48:00.001-08:00

Swedish perfomer Linn Hilda Lamberg had joined the Artout project. Linn recently performed at the Black Box Theater in Oslo.

WE ARE HOOKERS FOR JESUS

2010-03-13T14:01:00.000-08:00

WE ARE HOOKERS FOR JESUS? (70s ideal for revolutionary women and revolutionary sex of the cult group CHILDREN OF GOD)
WE ARE ALL PROSTITUTES? (80s state-of-mind remixed for the 2000s)

Mario Mentrup
Berlin/Madrid
January -March 2008

There was this one night at Babie Deinhoffs , a gay/lesbian bar in the todays hip-district of our town: Berlin-KREUZBERG ( means
americans & scandinavians buy appartments and houses like crazy here). Yes indeed Barbie Deinhoffs is a wild Bar and a silly Bar, crowded with nightlife-tourists waiting for doors to open at Berghain' s( Inscene dancefloor-place with a darkroom for everybody and Hardcore Hip-doorkeepers), and of course the usual Barbie Deinhoffs crowd: drugged and drunken egomaniacs; be they gay, straight or porn.
I had a big laugh watching this young -musican- guy trying to discuss the lines "WE ARE ALL PROSTITUTES" by the 80sAct Pop Group with two friends of mine. My two friends, veryveryvery drunken ladies, one of them a struggling actrice, the other one a quite popular Music Act, were not amused at all. The actrice pulled the minimal-electropop-artist from his chair outta the Bar into the dark of cold Berlin night, yelling at him: WE AAARRRE NOOO PROSTITUTES!!!!! The guy tried to get in again, wanting to explain himself, to make his point clear: "The line of the song was so full of truth, bitter and hard to swallow, but anyway true and..."

blablablablablablablabla..........

must the noise have been the ladies heard. No Mercy this time! Now they were two chicks gettin on him, kicking him out," Fucker! Fuck yourself, Pervert!!! Damn you!!!! callin us Prostitutes!!" 2 - 3 times." Fucker! Fuck yourself!"The guy had to give up and go.
People in the Bar went on being ego here ego there, babble and drink. I had to giggle real hard... I ordered another Beer.Yes FUCK yourself!! The damn drunken chicks had been right: neither they were prostitutes nor the guy because he was only a twenty/thirtysomethin Clubber/Electronicpopmusician wating to get signed by a label again.
So maybe the guy had felt a sensation of self-exploitation in front of a lower middle class Labelchef with typical GERMAN ANGST (the shit ANGST is nowadays more contagious than AIDS) but no!!! the chicks were - because of primitively sheer serious drunkenness not able to follow the guys' argument- absolutely right :"We are No Prostiutes..."
The Night went on and the old 80s paranoia- formed lines of POP GOUP had become sour.

2 or 3 months later I had a night in Madrid, a Bar crowded with artists, students and the usual Hip-Gayscene. I was invited by the german Goethe Institute to create art-for-hire (how stupid can you go? Yo!!! Hey but it's the modern times? I am gettin 43..I'm too old for Rock n Roll and especially ART goes POP) THATS WHAT I THOUGHT... A young British artist was playing Cds and Downloads- VERY sophisticated New York ..Iceland...Finland...Rock/electro/Kraut/Prog- as this spanish young Lady came to me and invited me for a double Gin Tonic...I remembered seeing her at the Goethe Institut and she told me she was doing German classes because she wanted to graduate at a Berlin actors school. She ordered some more Drinks, asking me about any manouvres and tricks how- to- become -an- actor BLABLABLA... She saw me looking at the huge glass of Gin Tonic. She must have read my thoughts: How-expensive-this night-would-become?
Her tone suddenly changed from an innocent art girl's voice to a darker tone : degrading me and my few euros in my jeans and damn all masculinity in general. Those were her words: "Don't you have a problem. I got enough money. The men think I'm so sweet... They think they fuck me, I fuck them, I fuck old men...Pays the rent, so don't you worry!" Having said that, she ordered another round of Gin Tonics. The night went on. We were visiting some more bars in Madrid. Finally I found myself totally pissed in her room-mate's bedroom. A former top model for top magazines. Now she was a nude model of another deranged example of masculinity.
I woke up with a BIG hangover, but i pulled myself together. I didnt want to miss my plane back to Berlin. In Berlin i stayed two weeks at home, not seeing a damn person, being sick of it all: No Money in my pocket. Street philosopy! In- Scene! Degradation! I went down to the cafe' in my street and read an article about those many many young women in Paris and Rome studying and financing their livestyle as escort girls or webcamgirls. We all know Youporn, pornotube etc. is giving the professional porn industry a big headache. The Californian burlesque strippers SUICIDE GIRLS were the hottest thing last year.
It seems like in the 20s and 30s in Europe or like after WW II: callgirls and hookers, cabaret dancers organizing themselves. A lot of of prostitution was also going on in WIRTSCHAFTSWUNDER Deutschland 50s and 60S . I remember as a kid listening to the damn jokes the adults made: First looking at the new born child then looking right into the face of the father , they said: "Doesnt really look like you, ha?!!!
Those were the days...
The ordinary uptight guy with no money extra in his pocket and whose aim was not to be a gangster or a pimp had only one choice.KEEP THE SECRET. Never ask your wife more questions than needed. Because he had no right to do so. If the tiny soldier couldn't bring enough money home to feed his wife and the family: No questions allowed. There is a whole literature genre about this situation: the most striking example is the novel CHINCHILLA by Renate Rasp, published in the 70s, during the Rise and Fall of sexual liberation in German Federal Republic (BRD)
Porno is a degrading media and even like so many TV-gameshows or Youtube-culture today it is a medium where the (male) Spectator/Voyeur can get a feeling of superiority watching others - in pornflicks mainly women - being abused and dehumanized or via youtube: celebs making asses of themselves.... Remember the silly giggles of the MTV cartoon characters BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD? Neoliberalism..Globalisation is empowering the act of dehumanizing ourselves....EVERYWHERE!!! Not only in Damascus, in Moskau and Bukarest , Tokyo EVERWHERE... It means for Daddy that there is no Dualism any more, no right and wrong, no Good and Evil, no pussy outdoors and meals at home..No more "la maman et la putain": It s your daughter!!! Remembering the frustrating Filmscene in MIIKE TAKASHIS VISITOR Q the cheap/sicko Adaption of Pasolinis THEOREMA : the Daddy, a customer of a LOVE HOTEL sees in the mirror that he's fucking his own daughter.

The Phallus has been in possession of the sun god and the state. No longer. Now dark powers expose the male security: rootless cosmopolitan elements.

Foxes, Hyenas, Eagles, Witches disguised as human beings: Hustlers!

The young musician guy from Berlin will be lucky as long as he can be sure the girls of his peer-group are no prostitutes, because he can't pay their rent anyway, with or without being a Hustler. But anyway. Maybe "Its the Beginning of a New Age" (Velvet Underground) or the decline of an "Empire" (Antonio Negri). But still now it forces us to rethink our sober- nonsmoking- clean -middleclass ideals of Motherhood Fatherhood Property Sex Bodypolitcs Sensuality Relationship Family Marriage Jealousy Possession Obssession Perversity Normality Love and Lust

Mario Mentrup, New Artout Particpant

2010-03-13T13:37:00.000-08:00

Artout Escort Agency is joined by Mario Mentrup, a Berlin-based actor, filmmaker, musician, and publisher.

Mike Rimbaud's New Album

2010-03-10T14:21:00.000-08:00

Muke Rimbaud's New Album "What was I thinking?" is coming out on April 12 on Pop Law label, distributed by Sony Music.

Our other competitors

2010-03-05T03:18:00.000-08:00

http://www.speakersassociates.comn

Vincent Gallo provides escort

2010-02-15T15:04:00.000-08:00

VINCENT GALLO evenings, weekends escort.

$50,000.00

wish, dream or fantasy with VINCENT GALLO, ladies only

Have you ever watched a movie and fallen in love with one of the actors? The way they looked or a character they played? Afterwards you thought of them over and over. Daydreaming, imagining things, sexy things. When I was very young I was madly in love with Tuesday Weld and Charlotte Rampling. On my 14th birthday I went to see the film Rolling Thunder and had my biggest crush of all on the actress Linda Haynes. I wished and wished and wished everyday that I could meet all these girls. I thought of a lot of sexy things with Susan Blakely after seeing her in Lords of Flatbush. In my mind I could do with her anything I wanted to do. So believe me, I know and understand what it's like to wish and dream about spending time with a movie star. Doing things that couples do. Couples in love. At least couples where the guy is hot and knows how to handle a chick.

I, Vincent Gallo, star of such classics as Buffalo 66 and The Brown Bunny have decided to make myself available to all women. All women who can afford me, that is. For the modest fee of $50,000 plus expenses, I can fulfill the wish, dream, or fantasy of any naturally born female. The fee covers one evening with Vincent Gallo. For those who wish to enjoy my company for a weekend, the fee is increased to a mere $100,000. Heavy set, older, red heads and even black chicks can have me if they can pay the bill. No real female will be refused. However, I highly frown upon any male having even the slightest momentary thought or wish that they could ever become my client. No way Jose. However, female couples of the lesbian persuasion can enjoy a Vincent Gallo evening together for $100,000. $200,000 buys the lesbos a weekend. A weekend that will have them second-guessing.

I am willing to travel worldwide to accommodate clients. However, travel days are billed at $50,000 per plus all premium flight fees. Scanning for STD's is required as is bathing and grooming prior to our encounter. Detailed photos of potential clients also required prior. An extra fee for security to protect me is charged on top of the fantasy fee. Security fees will vary depending on the details of an encounter and how much security I will need.

Potential clients are advised to screen the controversial scene from The Brown Bunny to be sure for themselves that they can fully accommodate all of me. Clients who have doubt may want to test themselves with an unusually thick and large prosthetic prior to meeting me. You may be surprised just how much you can handle and how good it feels.

This service is available, but is only payable by cash, checks, and/or bank wire. No credit card payments accepted for this item.

Please email your inquiries to info@vgmerchandise.co

Mike Rimbaud's new album and blog

2010-01-30T03:01:00.001-08:00

Mike Rimbaud has a new album coming out in Europe in April 2010. Check his MySpace page for the songs:

http://http://myspace.com/thesubwaysun

Mike also has a new blog with lots of video, art and photos:

http://mikerimbaud.blogspot.com

Here is a video by Mike:

Solo show by Elena Kovylina at Analix Forever

2009-11-15T10:12:00.000-08:00

Elena Kovylina or the Misunderstanding

from 14 November 2009 to 14 January 2010
Opening 14 and 15 November 09 from 11 am to 6 pm
t +41 22 329 17 09 rue de l’Arquebuse 25 | CH-1204 Genève
f +41 22 329 54 01 analix@forever-beauty.com | www.analix-forever.com

In Moscow, where she lives, Elena Kovylina has no studio. Her place of work is therefore urban space or institutions; her medium, performance. From Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin to the Sharjah Biennial, from a square in Salzburg to the Cetinie Biennial, from the MAK in Vienna to the art fair in Miami, Elena Kovylina takes over spaces and contexts in order to present radical performances that question conventions, norms and dogmas. The vocabulary and position adopted by the artist are extreme. Often, she puts herself in danger physically and thus subjects spectators to the risk of witnessing a potentially fatal outcome. Her performances disturb and fascinate, provoking both unease and desire. In Geneva, this Russian performance artist spent the summer of 2009 in residence at Galerie Analix Forever in order to carry out a project long close to her heart. The summer was one long painting session. Kovylina thus returned to the rigorous apprenticeship of a classical style of painting that had occupied nearly twelve years of her life before she chose another means of expression. Making the most of this summer residency, she decided to do studio work in the gallery space and chose to reappropriate the image of her past performances by producing new images, in this case canvases. These canvases reproduce stills from montages of the videos she made of her performances. First misunderstanding: in these videos, the artist is not entirely in control of her images, which are necessarily filtered through the prism of a third party, whose choice of shots betrays an approach that, for all the subsequent editing, can never exactly match the artist’s original intentions – the “picture” of the performance that she had in her head before she made it. In order to dissolve this distance, Elena Kovylina uses painting. Here is the second misunderstanding: the artist who calls herself a performer becomes a painter and produces a series of pictures. Here Kovylina can choose her perspective, subject, light and colour, the details to focus on, and the materials to be used,
thus completely reappropriating, by her own subjectivity, the result of her work. The result is a series of realist canvases retracing the artist’s steps, all the way to the last performance, given at the Analix Forever gallery on 13 August 2009: Voulez-vous un café ? or Feu le monde bourgeois, an event now attested by the charred table installed in the exhibition, the edited video of the performance and the last canvas in this cycle, representing its climax. The circle thus closes, whereas the misunderstanding could well prove more lasting: at the end of the summer, Kovylina felt that perhaps the only way of dispelling it might be to once again make painting part of her artistic practice.

Elena Kovylina was born in 1971 and lives and works in Moscow. Le Malentendu is her first solo exhibition in Western Europe.

Exhibition from 14 November 2009 to 14 January 2010, Tuesday to Saturday from 2 pm to 7 pm and by appointment.

With the support of VideoSystems, Geneva

Mark Boswell at Cambridge Film Festival, UK, September, September 2009

2009-11-11T13:19:00.000-08:00

Photo by Ken Hollings

Review by Festival Daily on 27 Sep 2009

‘I’m sorry if that hurt, that was not my intention,’ says Mark Boswell, opening his Q&A following the screening of a number of his short films, running chronologically through the years from 2001 to 2008. Obviously the audience thought the contrary, but this sets the tone of the whole event - both the films and the discussion afterwards – full of energy and humour, and never less than engrossing.

Dealing with issues ranging from global warming to the obsession with the hamburger in US society, the joy of viewing a collection in this manner is that it is possible to see running themes and idiosyncrasies in Boswell’s work, such as his interest in the Bush administration and post-Cold War issues. Comprised mainly of existing footage (due to his ‘criminal inclination to steal’, he jokes when asked about this), such as documentary and educational footage and importantly, films. In this, it is possible to see Boswell’s love of film and that he has studied the medium. Some of the highlights are laugh-out-loud moments where classic film scenes are used, but with subtitles contradicting what the characters are saying. His juxtaposition of the written word overlaying the image is remarkable, used in various ways throughout.

Abstract and certainly not narrative in the traditional sense, the variety of images thrown at the audience is obviously selected and constructed with intelligence and personality – which at times could lose the audience, is also a pleasure, being able to take away a list of titles, names and images that you want to research and explore further.

Indeed, the event as a whole revealed that Boswell is just as interesting as his films. An exciting filmmaker, who aptly sums up his work, ‘pessimism interacting with too many movies and too much realism’. How could that not be intriguing?

MIKE BOYD

http://www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.uk/films/2009/mark-boswell-the-art-of-nova-kino

Michel Journiac's Contract from 1974

2009-09-04T10:00:00.001-07:00

Anton Koslov Mayr on UN Project

2009-07-30T14:21:00.001-07:00

UN project in Moscow

2009-06-30T14:23:00.000-07:00

Mark Boswell and AKM Showing their project in Moscow

AKM and Vladimir Dudchenko, art critic and collector

Georgy Ostretsov at the Venice Biennale

2009-06-15T10:17:00.006-07:00

Artout's Gosha Ostretsov represents Russia at the 53rd Venice Biennale:
http://vernissage.tv/blog/2009/07/24/victory-over-the-future-russian-pavilion-53rd-venice-biennale-2009/

Mark Boswell and Anton Koslov Mayr at Jason Rulnick Gallery

2009-05-24T06:25:00.001-07:00

Opening night of "UN is Deacdent and Depraved" at Jason Rulnick Gallery in New York on May 21, 2009

Artout's Georgy (Gosha) Ostretsov scores on Volta

2009-03-19T14:53:00.001-07:00

The Art Newspaper, 6-8, March 2008

ARTOUT at Bridge Art Fair in NY, March 5-8, 2009

2009-03-13T16:28:00.000-07:00

Mike Rimbaud

Mark Boswell

2009-03-13T06:07:00.000-07:00

Sena Yoon

Per Platou

Per Platou, Sena Yoon, Mike Rimbaud

Michael Workman, organizer of Bridge with Per Platou, Mark Boswell, Mike Rimbaud

2009-03-12T12:30:00.000-07:00

Artout Escort Service was a special feature event during Bridge Art Fair. Considering that this was Artout's first collective public event, it was an unconditional success. We were mentioned in the Wall Street Journal as the new model of art, and Flavorewire.com called us a "noteworthy programme" . And we had many new applicants who want to participate in the project.

Per Platou with two hot admirers

Artout's good friend, curator Olga Kopenkina

Per Platou and a client

Visitor listening to Pearl & John's album

Kenny Scharf on art whoring

2009-03-09T14:19:00.000-07:00

From The Art Newspaper, 6-8 March 2008

Stephen Shanabrook joins Artout

2009-02-27T15:44:00.000-08:00

American artist Stephen Shanabrook joined Artout project as its newest particpant! Stephen is now a part of Artout's NY crew.

ARTOUT's New Participant

2009-02-08T11:01:00.000-08:00

Artout is proud to welcome SENA YOON of the ROYAL ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS in Antwerp, as its newest participant!

Artout at Bridge/Armory

2009-01-20T03:26:00.000-08:00

ARTOUT is participating in BRIDGE ART FAIR in New York, March 5-8, 2009

Eric Pougeau in Nice, 7 Feb. to 18 Apr. 2009

2009-01-06T02:47:00.000-08:00

Artout's Elena Kovylina at the Lens Politica festival in Helsinki November 19–23, 2008-10-2

2008-11-12T05:22:00.000-08:00

Elena Kovylina
Dying Swans
Russian video and performance artist Elena Kovylina’s video installation Dying Swans deals with the concepts of a national community and the unconscious identity. In the era of the Soviet Union, after the death of Stalin, it was a tradition in the Soviet to show Tschaikovsky’s Swan Lake every time an exalted statesman passed away. According to Kovylina, Russia hasn’t succeeded in finding equally powerful cultural characteristics after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nowadays, the tacky consumption craze of the newly rich is the most visible form of Russianness; the same can be said of the rest of the world. In the heyday of the new, hard liberalistic values funding for the arts is scant. Reporters, writers, and artists do not dare to express hemselves, fearing serious implications.

During the past ten years approximately 200 Russian reporters have been murdered or have disappeared – in Finland the best-known case probably being Anna Politkovskaja. Dying Swans is Kovylina’s interpretation of Tschaikovsky’s ballet, and a homage to all these reporters. Soviet Union symbolism meets oday’s brutal political reality in the video installation, the meeting taking its form in a charged dance. Open social criticism in art is rare in Russia. Kovylina is one of the few artists who dare to take a stand, to both the polemical national and international issues. Dying Swans has been exhibited in Paris, but in the artist’s hometown the gallery owners have not dared to show it.
Minna Långström
20.11.-30.11. / Open Mon-Sun 11-18, Free Entrance / Kaiku Galleria & Kuvataid

http://www.lenspolitica.net/

Artout in FLASH ART

2008-10-14T12:03:00.000-07:00

Artout full page ad just appeared in October/November issue of Flash Art. Design by Mark Boswell.

Mark Boswell at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Oct.14 2008

2008-10-10T13:49:00.000-07:00

Our participants at the MoMA

2008-09-19T18:16:00.000-07:00

New Artout Participant

2008-08-31T05:53:00.000-07:00

Artout Projects welcomes Susi Krautgartner, an Austrian artist, who recently joined our project!

OUR FULL SUPPORT TO STEVE KURTZ

2008-06-14T04:17:00.000-07:00

.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 11, 2008

CONTACTS:
Email: media@caedefensefund.org
Dr. Steven J. Kurtz: (716) 812-2968
Lucia Sommer, CAE Defense Fund: (716) 359-3061
Edmund Cardoni, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center: (716) 854-1694

ARTIST CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES IN PRECEDENT-SETTING CASE
Department of Justice Fails to Appeal Dismissal Kurtz Speaks about Four-Year Ordeal

Buffalo, NY--Dr. Steven Kurtz, a Professor of Visual Studies at SUNY at Buffalo and cofounder of the award-winning art and theater group Critical Art Ensemble, has been cleared of all charges of mail and wire fraud. On April 21, Federal Judge Richard J. Arcara dismissed the government's entire indictment against Dr. Kurtz as "insufficient on its face." This means that even if the actions alleged in the indictment (which the judge must accept as "fact") were true, they would not constitute a crime. The US Department of Justice had thirty days from the date of the ruling to appeal. No action has been taken in this time period, thus stopping any appeal of the dismissal. According to Margaret McFarland, a spokeswoman for US Attorney Terrance P. Flynn, the DoJ will not appeal Arcara's ruling and will not seek any new charges against Kurtz.

For over a decade, cultural institutions worldwide have hosted Kurtz and Critical Art Ensemble's educational art projects, which use common science materials to examine issues surrounding the new biotechnologies. In 2004 the Department of Justice alleged that Dr. Kurtz had schemed with colleague Dr. Robert Ferrell of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health to illegally acquire two harmless bacteria cultures for use in one of those projects. The Justice Department further alleged that the transfer of the material from Ferrell to Kurtz broke a material transfer agreement, thus constituting mail fraud.

Under the USA PATRIOT Act, the maximum sentence for these charges was increased from five years to twenty years in prison.

Dr. Kurtz has been fighting the charges ever since. In October 2007, Dr. Ferrell pleaded to a lesser misdemeanor charge after recurring bouts of cancer and three strokes suffered since his indictment prevented him from continuing the struggle.

KURTZ SUMS UP END OF FOUR-YEAR NIGHTMARE

Finally vindicated after four years of struggle, Kurtz, asked for a statement, responded stoically: "I don't have a statement, but I do have questions. As an innocent man, where do I go to get back the four years the Department of Justice stole from me? As a taxpayer, where do I go to get back the millions of dollars the FBI and Justice Department wasted persecuting me? And as a citizen, what must I do to have a Justice Department free of partisan corruption so profound it has turned on those it is sworn to protect?"

Said Kurtz's attorney, Paul Cambria, "I am glad an innocent man has been vindicated. Steve Kurtz stared in the face of the federal government and a twenty-year prison term and never flinched, because he believes in his work and his actions were those of a completely innocent man. Clients like him are a blessing, and although I have had many important victories, this one
stands at the top of the list."

As coordinator of the CAE Defense Fund, a group organized to support Kurtz from the beginning of the case, Lucia Sommer sees the end of the prosecution as bittersweet, and like Kurtz, is thoughtful about the broader significance of the case: "This ruling is the best possible ending to a horrible ordeal--but we are mindful of numerous cases still pending, and the grave injustices perpetrated by the Bush administration following 9/11. This case was part of a larger picture, in which law enforcement was given expanded powers. In this instance, the Bush administration was unsuccessful in its attempt to erode Americans' constitutional rights."

Referring to the international outcry the case provoked, involving fundraisers and protests held on four continents, Sommer said, "The government has unlimited resources to bring and prosecute these kinds of charges, but the accused often don't have any resources to defend themselves. This victory could never have happened without the activism of thousands of people. Supporters protested, vocally opposed the prosecution, and refused to let it go on in silence. And without their efforts at fundraising, Kurtz and Ferrell would not have been able to defend themselves from these false accusations."

The Department of Justice brought the charges in spite of the fact that the alleged "victims of fraud"--American Type Culture Collection and the University of Pittsburgh--never filed any charges or complained of any wrongdoing, and the fact that in bringing the charges the Department of Justice was acting completely outside its own Prosecution Policy Relating to Mail Fraud and Wire Fraud (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title9/43mcrm.htm).

For more information and extensive documentation, including the Judge's dismissal, please visit: http://caedefensefund.org

FROM THE EDITORS OF THIS BLOG: Steve Kurtz is a supporter of ARTOUT

National Front against Artout participant

2008-05-21T11:21:00.000-07:00

Artout members are stirring controversy again. This time Eric Pougeau’s work was labeled "disgusting" by France’s extreme-right National Front Deputy Francoise Grolet. Grolet referred to Pougeau's work exposed in the city of Metz, in a group show “Unfamily” and demanded the regional contemporary art center to remove Eric's pieces. We express our complete and unconditional solidarity and support for Eric Pougeau and fully condemn any attempt to impose artistic censorship and limit the freedom of expression by the self-appointed guardians of public morals. The days of "Degenerate Art" and its exhibitors had long gone.

Art Moscow 2008

2008-05-16T22:15:00.000-07:00

Lee Mayr Collective' Anton Koslov Mayr's work shown at Art Moscow fair. May 14 -18, 2008, Central Artist Pavillion, Photographer Gallery, stand 14-5

Foto Fictions

2008-05-10T08:03:00.000-07:00

Per Platou and Mark Boswell, at the openning of Photo Fictions, Showcave Gallery, Los Angeles, 26 April 2008

Artout and Friends rock LA!

2008-05-09T23:00:00.000-07:00

Artout and friends after a champaign dinner in Dresden Room, Los Angeles, April 25, 2008

Evgeny Nikitine at the Paris Opera

2008-04-15T16:57:00.000-07:00

Artout participant Evgeny Nikitin is singing at the Paris Opera Apri 10 through May 6, the Prisoner by Luigi Dallapiccola, directed by Lluis Pasqual, with Rosalind Plowright and Chris Merritt.
Photo curtesy Opera de Paris.

ARTOUT IS GROWING

2008-04-15T16:33:00.000-07:00

We are proud to welcome Staš Kleindienst and Sebastjan Leban, our art colleagues from the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts and Design as the latest addition to the Artout Escort Service family!

Mark Boswell and Anton Koslov at the Showcave Gallery in L.A.

2008-04-11T07:29:00.000-07:00

Mark Boswell and Anton Koslov (Mayr) participate in a group show Photo Fictions: New Narrative Photography at the Showcave Gallery in Los Angleles. The show opens on April 26. The show is curated by Rodney Archer.

www.showcave.org

Eric Pougeau, part of the Freakshow.

2008-03-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

OFFICIAL STATEMENT BY ARTOUT PROJECT

2008-01-13T11:48:00.000-08:00

ARTOUT project expresses its full solidarity with Dr. Carol Mann in her quest for justice against AFAD/Parsons Paris.

Eric Pougeau at the Louisiana Hotel

2007-12-10T12:02:00.000-08:00

Eric Pougeau has a new gallery - Eva Hober in Paris. Eric is also participating in the CURATING CONTEST show at the Hotel la Louisiane. The show is organized by Olivier Robert gallery at 60 rue de Seine 75006 Paris from Dec. 12 to Dec. 22 décembre 2007. The openning is on Dec.12. At 10 PM Eric will perform with Pearl & John.

Eric Pougeau piece that will be presented at the show.

ARTOUT in the news in Russia

2007-12-04T15:36:00.000-08:00

AFISHA, Moscow society & entertainment magazine rented Georgy Ostretsov using Artout and run a five-page account of the experience in its December (n.27) issue.

Арт кромешный
Текст: Светлана Репина
В Москве появилась контора Artout, работающая как служба эскорта. Только вместо девушек и секса Artout предоставляет клиентам художников, писателей и оперных певцов. «Афиша» решила разобраться в происходящем и заказала себе на целый день художника Георгия Острецова

Кафе «Жан-Жак»
В «Жан-Жаке» я встречаюсь с художником Гошей Острецовым — он давно и вполне успешно проводит свои перформансы в Европе, а в России его выставляет Марат Гельман. Нам предстоит провести вместе целый день. И я выступаю в роли клиента — хочу, чтобы он нарисовал мне картину и устроил какую-нибудь культурную программу. Кстати, Гошин час по прайсу Artout стоит 400 долларов. «Это оплата сервис-коммуникации, — рассуждает художник. — Очень смелый проект, поэтому мы можем относиться к нему благосклонно. Мне важно отобразить эпоху, создать прецедент нового языка, а деньги потом придут. Разве у искусства задача — заработать деньги?» — «А представь, какой-нибудь русский медведь из Уренгоя, — начинаю я, — ну там, я не знаю, он устал от жизни, ему все надоело, теперь он жаждет искусства, но в своем понимании…» — «Какой медведь, а-а, человек, — перебивает он. — Да, знаю таких, медведицы тоже есть, и много. Всяким богатым папикам прикольно иметь в собственной компании художников. Потом еще кино про них снимать. Например, они едут в путешествие и берут художников, чтобы поднять статус путешествия, а художники ведь любят халяву. Это не меценатство, они именно берут художника, чтобы развлекаться: им нужен умный человек в компании. Это существует. Тот же Кулик недавно в Монголию ездил». Интересуюсь у Гоши нашей культурной программой, но больше всего меня волнует — что мы будем рисовать. Почему-то предлагаю нарисовать купюру 500 евро. Гоша отказывается: «Давай все-таки создадим произведение искусства». — «Отлично, — говорю. — Только что мы будем рисовать? Не Путина же…» — «А давай мадам Путину».

«Винзавод»
В просветительских целях мы отправляемся на «Винзавод», побродить по выставкам и там же нарисовать «Портрет первой леди» (из соображений политкорректности мы решили назвать картину так). Для начала зашли к Гельману — Гоша хотел показать свои работы, но их уже сняли и вот-вот повесят художества Мэрилина Мэнсона. Идем в соседнее помещение, что-то вроде склада-запасника, и разглядываем творения музыканта. «Мэнсон — это курьез, — комментирует Острецов. — Как рисунки Андрея Макаревича. В принципе, никому не запрещено мазюкать. А вообще это какие-то дети нерожденные, да?»

Идем дальше. Заходим во все попадающиеся на пути галереи. В Photographer.ru мы встречаем местного начальника Безукладникова и сообщаем, что собираемся рисовать первую леди. «Я думаю, потом вам нужно продать этот портрет Путину, — с серьезным выражением лица заявляет Андрей. — Ну когда он выйдет на пенсию, займется бизнесом и коллекционированием».

Далее по плану выставка, организованная журналом «Арт-хроника», под сомнительным названием «Премия Кандинского» (Гоша говорит, что в Польше уже есть такая премия и давно). «Чей это был отбор — непонятно. А вот, кстати, Врубель, — кивает Гоша на гигантского гопника. — Это выставлялось недавно в Галерее Гельмана».

Гоша комментирует практически каждый объект на выставке — скульптуры, анимации, картины. Мы приходим к выводу, что все сделано очень качественно, точно выверено. Но ничего нового и сверхвыдающегося мы не обнаружили. «Только время сможет определить — искусство это или нет. Как говорил Маяковский, зайдите ко мне через 200 лет. Время рисует за человека. Вот, например, смотри, Сергей Сайгон — молодой художник, взял и начал работать под Костю Латышева. Костя уже давно в этой стилистике работает. — Мы проходим мимо экрана с очередной тридэшной анимацией. — И разницы-то нет. Многие начинают работать под кого-то. Простому человеку сложно отличить рыночное искусство от музейного. Нужно быть очень серьезным специалистом. Да, я отличаю. У меня, как у художника, есть очень четкое мнение. Но это мнение может со временем меняться — сейчас мне нравится, а потом может разонравиться».

У местных граффитчиков Гоша раздобыл ключи от одной из мастерских — там мы и будем рисовать. Из соседнего помещения раздаются «Яблони в цвету» — там Алексей Калима со своей беременной женой разгребают завал после вчерашнего открытия «Премии Кандинского». «Да, угорели вчера, — сообщает он нам, убирая с прохода прямоугольную ржавую штуку с красной надписью «Кислота». — А зачем вам рисовать первую леди, лучше сделать плакат и идти на демонстрацию, сегодня ж 7 ноября, поздравляю, кстати. Вот, кстати, хачапури, угощайтесь». После хачапури мы закрываемся в нашей каморке, берем холст метр на метр, и Гоша разводит краски.

«Мне очень нравится серебряный фон, давай сделаем. Потому что золотой означал бы святость. Но серебряный тоже — такая народная дешевая позолота», — предлагает Гоша. Я, в свою очередь, настаиваю на зеленом: первая леди на пленэре. Мне хочется изобразить ее на лугу. «Да, конечно, у нас же совместное творчество, — соглашается Гоша. — Опять же, «Завтрак на траве», да, точно! Делим полотно на две ровные части — серебряный верх и зеленый низ. Нам же нужна перспектива. Мадам Путина — это прежде всего собирательный образ. Образ дамы, властительницы, первой леди, высшей женственности. А я прежде всего — русский художник, поэтому стараюсь воплощать в своем творчестве русскую традицию. Сейчас ты увидишь и элементы Серова, и Репина, а также дымковской игрушки — в этом нет ничего зазорного: наши женщины похожи на матрешек…»

Мы заканчиваем грунтовать. Получается почти Куинджи с его лунным светом. «Ну вот, теперь можно и подпись ставить», — смеется Острецов.

Я нахожу на столе среди дисков, карандашей и красок детскую книжку Сутеева и начинаю читать вслух рассказ про гриб и лягушку, в это время Гоша изображает силуэт женщины со сложенными, как у Моны Лизы, руками. Через несколько секунд появляются декольте, шляпка, манжеты и грудь. Я предлагаю нарисовать горящую избу и красного коня — как символ настоящей русской женщины. «Ты меня заставила делать такую живопись, м-да. Но мы не отчаиваемся», — на самом деле Гоша явно получает удовольствие от нашей импровизации.

«Заказ художника через Artout — это возможность понять психологию и работу мысли художника, — говорит Острецов, делая трафарет коня. — Возможность попытаться проанализировать мотивы художника. И одновременно задать ему вопросы. Так процесс творчества становится понятнее». Тут для пущего реализма я решаю подрисовать волосы. Гоша дает добро, и я приступаю. При этом немного нервничаю, поскольку рисовать не умею вообще.

«Слушай, я понял, — восклицает Гоша, когда волосы готовы, — ты внесла в картину элемент пластического идиотизма. У тебя, кстати, отличное чувство симметрии. И талант. Ты сделала картину более невменяемой. То, что нужно, — нужно уходить от эстетического, не должно быть легкости, нужно пройти через испытания».

Мы включаем радио, оно настроено на волну радио «Дача». «О, — говорит Гоша, — как раз лубочная музыка. У нее курносый нос, нет?» Красные кони готовы, в голове изба горит. Вдруг Гоша неожиданно одним махом делает аэрозолем зеленую маску. Теперь все вроде как на месте — художник доволен.

«Можно ставить подпись. Вместе подписываемся, а?» — смеется Гоша. Но я хочу, чтобы он подписывал картину без меня. Упаковав «Путину» в целлофан и перевязав ее белым скотчем, мы отправляемся выпить за нас всех, а главное, за искусство в кафе «Маяк». Едем на метро.

Московский метрополитен
В моих руках «Первая леди», Гоша стоит рядом и рассуждает о том, что в нашем обществе потребления нет культуры производства: «Вот когда люди начнут покупать заводы, чтобы создавать там музеи, тогда можно говорить уже о штучных произведениях и об их потреблении. А у нас за последние 10 лет ничего не изменилось — холст и масло, все! Даже графика не ценится: бумагу не считают произведением искусства».

Кафе «Маяк»
В «Маяке» мы ждем заказанного, и Гоша показывает мне фотографии своего недавнего перформанса в Париже. В одной из галерей буржуазного района Марэ он выступил так: снял вывеску, вместо нее повесил свою — «Салон красоты». Сделал на фасаде несколько трафаретных надписей: «Здесь хорошо вые…анные сучки», «Каждый художник должен знать, где его миска с едой», «Также е…ем пидорасов в жопу».

Я распаковываю «Путину» и предлагаю Гоше устроить аукцион и заработать. «Я против аукционов при жизни, умру — пожалуйста». — «Тогда нужно оценить картину, знаешь, для проформы», — говорю я. Оказывается, что за соседним столиком сидят-выпивают знакомые кураторы — Алексей Новоселов из Московского музея современного искусства на Петровке и Алена Лапина из галереи «Рефлекс». После нескольких виски и долгих переговоров они оценили картину в 15 тысяч евро. «Первоначальная цена, да, а за двенадцать точно возьмут», — обнадежила меня Алена.

На следующий день я решила самостоятельно найти покупателя. Изучив записную книжку, позвонила Марату Гельману. «Знаете, мне для драматургии репортажа было бы здорово продать картину, ну вы понимаете…» — говорю я. «Да, понимаю, что у вас в голове, — ответил мне Марат. — Но я сотрудничаю лично с Гошей, поэтому давайте через него или вместе с ним».

Звоню Игорю Маркину. У него в коллекции Острецова нет и в ближайшее время не запланировано. В общем, феерического финала не получилось, зато теперь «Портрет первой леди» Георгия Острецова висит у меня дома.
http://www.afisha.ru/article/55/

Dana Wyse joins ARTOUT

2007-12-04T15:33:00.000-08:00

Paris Berlin

2007-12-02T22:08:00.000-08:00

Anne Roquigny, Per Platou, Anton Koslov Mayr, and Shu-Lea Cheang at Paris/Berlin reception, Palais de Tokyo

Per Platou in Paris

2007-12-02T11:16:00.000-08:00

Per Platou speaking at Paris/Berlin round table, Paris/Berlin Festival, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 1-12-2007

The Geopolitics of Pimping

2007-12-01T06:18:00.000-08:00

By Suely Rolnik
Translated by Brian Holmes

Birth of a Flexible Subjectivity

Until the early 1960s we lived beneath a disciplinary Fordist regime that reached its height in the “American way of life” triumphant in the postwar period, when a politics of identity reigned in subjectivity, along with a rejection of the resonant body. These two aspects are in fact inseparable, because only to the extent that we anesthetize our vulnerability can we maintain a stable image of ourselves and the other, that is, our supposed identities. Without this anesthesia, we are constantly deterritorialized and led to reconfigure the outlines of our selves and our territories of existence. Until the early 1960s, the creative imagination operated mainly by sneaking away to the fringes. That period came to an end in the course of 1960s-70s as a result of cultural movements that problematized the governing regime of the time, calling for “l'imagination au pouvoir.” Those movements brought the dominant mode of subjectivation into crisis, and it soon collapsed along with the entire structure of the Victorian family at its Hollywood apogee – a structure which had been fundamental for the regime whose hegemony began to fade at that moment. A “flexible subjectivity”[5] was then created, accompanied by radical experimentation with modes of existence and cultural creation which shattered the “bourgeois” lifestyle at its politics of desire, with its logic of identity, its relation to otherness and its culture. In the resulting “counter-culture,” as it was called, forms were created to express that which was indicated by the resonant body affected by the otherness of the world, at grips with the problematics of its time. The forms thus created tend to transmit subjectivity’s incorporation of the forces that shake up the environment and deterritorialize it. The advent of such forms is inseparable from a becoming-other of the self, but also of the environment. It can be said that the creation of these new territories has to do with public life, in the strong sense of the phrase: the collective construction of reality moved by the tensions that destabilize the reigning cartographies, as these affect the body of each person singularly, and as they are expressed on the basis of that singular affect. In other words, what each person express is the current state of the world – its meaning, but also and mainly, its lacks of meaning – as it presents itself within the body. So, the singular expression of each person participates in the endless tracing of a necessarily collective cartography.

Today these transformations have consolidated themselves. The scenario of our times is completely different: we are no longer beneath the regime of identity, the politics of subjectivation is no longer the same. We all now have available a flexible and processual subjectivity as instituted by the counter-cultural movements, and our force of creation in its experimental freedom is not only favorably viewed and welcomed, but is even stimulated, celebrated and frequently glamorized. However, in all this there is a “but,” which is hardly negligible. In the present, the most common destiny of flexible subjectivity and of the freedom of creation that accompanies it is not the invention of forms of expression motivated by an attention to sensations that signal the effects of the other’s existence within our resonant body. What guides us in this creation of territories for our post-Fordist flexibility is an almost hypnotic identification with the images of the world broadcast by advertising and mass culture.

By offering ready-made territories to subjectivities rendered fragile by deterritorialization, these images tend to soothe their unrest, thus contributing to the deafness of their resonant body, and therefore to its invulnerability to the affects of the time that are presented within it. But that may not be the most deadly aspect of this politics of subjectivation, which instead is the very message that such images invariably convey, independently of their style or their target-public. At stake here is the idea that there exist paradises, that these are now in this world and not beyond it, and above all, that certain people have the privilege of inhabiting them. What is more, such images transmit the illusion that we could be one of these VIPs, if we simply invested all our vital energy – our desire, affect, knowledge, intellect, eroticism, imagination, action, etc. – in order to actualize these virtual worlds of signs in our own existence, through the consumption of the objects and services they propose to us.

What we are faced with here is a new élan for the idea of paradise developed by Judeo-Christian religions: the mirage of a smoothed-over, stable life under perfect control. This kind of hallucination has its origin in the refusal of one’s vulnerability to the other and to the deterritorrializing turbulence that he or she provokes; and also in the disdain for fragility that necessarily derives from such an experience. This fragility is nonetheless essential because it indicates the crisis of a certain diagram of sensibility, its modes of expression, its cartographies of meaning. By disdaining fragility, it does not call up the desire for creation anymore; instead it provokes a sentiment of humiliation and shame whose result is the blockage of the vital process. In other words, what the Western idea of a promised paradise amounts to is a refusal of life in its immanent nature as an impulse to continuous processes of creation and differentiation. In its terrestrial version, capital has replaced God in his function as keeper of the promise, and the virtue that makes us worthy of it now becomes consumption: this is what constitutes the fundamental myth of advanced capitalism. In such a context, it is at the very least mistaken to consider that we lack myths today: it is precisely through our belief in this religious myth of neoliberalism, that the image-worlds produced by this regime turn into concrete reality in our own existence.

Flexible Subjectivity Surrenders to its Pimp

In other words, the “cultural” or “cognitive” capitalism that was conceived as a solution to the crisis provoked by the movements of the 1960s-70s absorbed the modes of existence that those movements invented and appropriated their subjective forces, especially that of the creative potential, which at the time was breaking free in social life. The creative potential was in effect put into power, as was called for by those movements. Yet we know now that this rise of the imagination to power is a micropolitical operation that consists in making its potential into the major fuel of an insatiable hypermachine for the production and accumulation of capital – to the point where one can speak of a new working class, which some authors call the “cognitariat.”[6] This kind of pimping of the creative force is what has been transforming the planet into a gigantic marketplace, expanding at an exponential rate, either by including its inhabitants as hyperactive zombies or by excluding them as human trash. In fact, those two opposing poles are interdependent fruits of the same logic; all our destinies unfold between them. This is the world that the imagination creates in the present. As one might expect, the politics of subjectivation and of the relation to the other that predominates in this scenario is extremely impoverished.

Currently, after almost three decades, it is possible to perceive this logic of cognitive capitalism operating within our subjectivity. Yet in the late 1970s, when its installation began, the experimentation that had been carried out collectively in the decades before in order to achieve emancipation from the pattern of Fordist and disciplinary subjectivity was quite difficult to distinguish from its incorporation into the new regime. The consequences of this difficulty are that the cloning of the transformations proposed by those movements was experienced by a great many of their protagonists as a signal of recognition and inclusion: the new regime appeared to be liberating them from the marginality to which they had been confined in the “provincial” world that was now fading away. Dazzled by the rise to power of their transgressive and experimental force of creation which was now thrusting them beneath the glamorizing spotlights of the media, launching them into the world and lining their pockets with dollars, the inventors of the transformations of earlier decades frequently fell into the trap. Many of them surrendered themselves voluntarily to their pimp, becoming the very creators and constructors of the world fabricated by and for the new-style capitalism.

This confusion undoubtedly stems from the politics of desire that characterizes the pimping of subjective and creative forces – a kind of power-relation that is basically exerted through the sorcery of seduction. The seducer conjures up a spellbinding idealization that leads the seduced to identify with the seducer and submit to him: that is to say, to identify with and submit to the aggressor, impelled by an inner desire, in hopes of being recognized and admitted into the seducer’s world. Only recently has this situation become conscious, which tends to break the spell. This transpires in the different strategies of individual and collective resistance that have been accumulating over the last few years, particularly through the initiative of a new generation which does not in any way identify with the proposed model of existence and understands the trick that has been played. It is clear that artistic practices – through their very nature as expressions of the problematics of the present as they flow through the artist’s body – could hardly remain indifferent to this movement. On the contrary, it is exactly for this reason that these questions emerged in art from the early 1990s onward, as mentioned at the outset. Using different procedures, these strategies have been carrying out an exodus from the minefield stretching between the opposite and complementary figures of luxury and trash subjectivity, the field in which human destinies are confined in the world of globalized capitalism. Amidst this exodus, other kinds of worlds are being created.

From
http://transform.eipcp.net/transversal/1106/rolnik/en

New ARTOUT Representative in Italy.

2007-11-30T14:35:00.000-08:00

Sara Vanacci, art critic and curator, joins Artout as its Italian representative. Sara gradauted from the University of Pisa and is currently residing in Prato where she works with various galleries and art fairs.

Elena Kovylina joins ARTOUT

2007-11-24T03:19:00.000-08:00

ARTOUT team welcomes Elena Kovylina, a well-known performannce artist who has recently joined the ARTOUT Project. Elena is currently working in Paris.

Roundtable discussion in Paris

2007-11-04T12:07:00.002-08:00

Published by PNEK

It is now confirmed that Per Platou will participate in one or more roundtable discussions at Les Rencontres Internationales in Paris, taking place at the Centre Pompidou, the musée national du Jeu de Paume, the Palais de Tokyo contemporary art centre and other locations at the end of November (Nov.22 - Dec.1)

The debates in this years edition will focus on issues in art programming between new cinema and contemporary art - film, video, installation and net art.

Participants will be curators, artistic directors and programmers from European and extra-European national museums, contemporary art centers and biennales, in the fields of contemporary cinema, video and new media. The presence of these participants in Paris, each of them having an expert view on cultural and contemporary art issues, is of genuine interest.

The debates that will be proposed have a real stake : presenting a panorama of preoccupations and tracks explored in each country to give an account of this contemporary practices, and to accompany them, from the criticism side as well as from the side of audiences and artists themselves. The issues approached in each round table are subject to a preparation according to the specific participants of each round table, to their centers of interests and their artistic and professional preoccupations.

ARTOUT'S Mike Rimbaud is showing his work

2007-11-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

Nov.6 - Dec. 11

Abron's Art Cente,
466, Grand Street,
NY NY, 10002

Georgy Ostretsov, performing in Paris

2007-11-01T18:06:00.000-07:00

24 Oct. 2007
Photos Curtesy Galerie RABOUAN MOUSSION, Paris 2007

The Yes Men support Artout.

2007-10-30T03:43:00.000-07:00

Andy Bichlbaum, artist, activist and founder of The Yes Men expressed his support for the Artout Project. So did Nic Nicosia, Jens Haaning, Steven Kurtz, Sarkis, Judith Hopf, Dmitry M. Shostakovich and many others. Thank you to all of you.

ARTOUT participant Alexander Kosolapov

2007-10-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

Artout participant Alexander Kosolapov in front of his sculpture at the openning of Sotz-Art show, Maison Rouge, Paris, 19 October 2007

New ARTOUT participant

2007-10-21T03:38:00.000-07:00

ARTOUT is proud to welcome its new participant Georgy (Gosha) Ostretsov. The multi-media artist Georgy Ostretsov has worked in the Moscow art scene since the mid-1980s, when he advanced the so-called “man style” (chelovek-stil') of avant-garde fashion, and participated in projects of the Detskii Sad group. At that time he also formed a partnership with the artist and komiksist Georgii “Zhora” Litichevskii, one of the very few Russian artists to utilize comics iconography in his work as early as the 1970s. They called themselves “George & George” a creative partnership that remains active to this day. From 1988-1998 Ostretsov lived in Paris, working for the fashion designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac. He also took part in projects by Jean Paul Gautier and Luc Besson. Georgy is currently participating in the Sots-Art show at the Maison Rouge foundation in Paris.

Regarding our pricing

2007-10-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

We are cheap in comparison to these guys:

Mariah Carey private performance - $1,000,000
Usher private performance - $1,000,000
Dr. Phil speech - $750,000 - $1,000,000
Nicole Kidman party appearance - $500,000 + jet
Jessica Simpson private performance - $400,000
Scarlett Johansson party appearance - $200,000
Demi Moore party appearance - $200,000
Nick Lachey party appearance - $100,000 (negotiable)
Pam Anderson party appearance - $75,000 - $250,000
Adrian Grenier private performance with band - $35,000
Tara Reid party appearance - $10,000 - $50,000.

Source: http://www.hollyscoop.com/

On Artout and Economy

2007-10-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

ARTOUT is an experimental art service that allows those (with the financial means) to spend time with an artist. To get into their minds and hear first hand what they believe and how they represent it through their work. A novel idea, but not an insane one. Like it or not, we are in the thick of capitalism, which means that any and everything we as consumers can conjure up to ‘need’ have and will be addressed and cured. But it’s not just the collectors and lovers of art that will benefit from such a service. Artists too, being sales people in their own right, can also gain perspective in the mysteries of art through the lens of those who adore it. For the artist, art is and outlet for the recreation of the mindful feelings, observances, ideas, and commentaries of society and life. Given the opportunity to see these reflections from another the point of view, that of those who buy it.

The law of the capitalist market with its emphasis on the ever-narrowing specialization of labor and maximization of profits invites artists to reinvent themselves over and over in order to escape the market-imposed limits to their identity. This limited identity confines artists to seek satisfying the ruling class’ demand for the special commodity fetish known as ‘Art’ and reproduce institutionally-defined ideology of culture. In both cases the producer and the consumer of ‘Art’ are limited in their freedom by the traditional modes of material exchange.

We, at ARTOUT, believe that art is an open concept and artistic praxis is the process of becoming that corresponds to the totality of individual temporality. Artistic creativity results from the dialectical relation between the acceptance of the market as the underlying principle of social reality, and the need to escape its imperatives of obedience and consensus; its locus is the individuality of the artist. The artist plays the “messenger” and the “message”, the self-medium that finds its legitimacy through the charismatic negation of conventionality and in the process renegotiates his identity.

We believe that the individuality of the artist is far more significant than the material end-product of his/her labor. As Dimitry Prigov used to say "Artist is more important than his art. Man is more important than the artist." We are extending the limits of the traditional market-model to recognize the artist as the self-defined commodity whose value resides in the immateriality of artist's “creative becoming”. Spending time in the company of the artist is a creative act; it reveals power relations within the existing artist-patron paradigm and leads to the mutual liberation of both artists and art-patrons from the condition of simple material production and accumulation to the next level of the direct creative exchange and immediate human solidarity.

ARTOUT is the first to create such an open forum of exchange between the art producer and the art consumer and help the artists to retake the economic territory that is rightfully their. This is the territory of instant utopia and today we are here to claim it.

By Olivia Wadsworth

2007-10-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

ARTOUT participant Per Platou riding high.

2007-10-12T01:49:00.000-07:00

THE ARTOUT PROJECT

2007-10-01T08:41:00.000-07:00

PRESS RELEASE

We recently learned that M. Serge Guarino, president of AFAD/Parsons Paris School of Design, an affiliate of Parsons The New School for Design, sent an official letter to one of our colleagues in which he, among other things, called the ARTOUT website to have "a potentially illicit objective." We regret that an affilaite campus of Parsons and the New School University, which was once known for its tradition of intellectual freedom and artistic innovation, resorts to such tactics. This insinuation is slanderous and without any merit. Its motivation is political. ARTOUT is an independent art project created and funded solely by Lee Mayr Collective with the sole objective to ferment a debate on the nature of art and the role of artists in our society. All other claims regarding ARTOUT's recources, its development and its objectives are baseless, constitute an assault on dignity and professional integrity of ARTOUT participants, and will be reffered to the court of law in the United States and elsewhere if needed.

Lee Mayr Collective

Artout Particpant Kate Pendry as Dead Diana.

2007-08-14T12:33:00.000-07:00

Kate Pendry, born in London, currently resides in Oslo. Multi-artist/performer. Winner of Best Stage Performance 2003 – National assoc. for Performing Arts (Norway); Woman Of The Year 2003 – Radio Orakel (Oslo).

Trained at Mountview Theatre School (London) and the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain.

Within the electronic art field has exhibited at Kunstnerneshus Oslo, the Melbourne Biennale 99; “Electra 96” at Henie-Onstad Art Centre, the 5th International Biennale in Istanbul, DEAF-Rotterdam; Awarded an honorary mention at Prix Ars Electronica ’96 for “sense:less” (w. mork/stenslie/watz)

Curator of “Cunt Club”, an alternative World Women´s Day Celebration including women´s fight club and pornographic embroidery exhibits.

Current solo works include “Sex In The Warzone” and “Marilyn Peepshow” and “Tales From a Wicked Child” - all performance/installations involving a degree of ‘extreme art’, and exhibited internationally.

Currently writes and presents the DDC World News (Dead Diana Corporation) a satirical, maverick weekly radio show on Radio Orakel, Oslo.

Dr. B, an Artout participant

2007-06-14T10:50:00.000-07:00

Photo by Rodney Ascher

2007-05-29T16:22:00.000-07:00

Staging Cultural Prosperity

by Jon Refsdal Moe

There is general agreement now that culture is capitalism. Whether their value is financial or symbolic, the processes and products of cultural expression are widely acknowledged as submitted to an advanced network of capital transactions. The processes of global capitalism have long since invaded the sphere of artistic production.

Cynical as it may seem, this assertion has never been acknowledged by artists themselves. From the cut-up paintings of the early avant-garde to the degradation of the body in contemporary performance, art has always challenged the ideological concept of its own autonomy: the idea that aesthetics is secluded from the processes of commercial and cultural production. In the early 00’s, the scrutiny of art’s socio-economic and ideological premises that the nineties knew as postmodernism, has led to the development of a new aesthetics, based on a deconstruction of boundaries between aesthetic, political and intellectual experience, and on the consequential cultural interchange between artists, intellectuals and political activists. Be it publications, exhibitions or concrete pieces, traditional institutions of modern art have become vehicles for political as well as aesthetic discussion, allowing these discourses to interweave.

Despite repeated efforts to recycle its political relevance, no similar development can be said to have taken place in European theatre. There is little critical discourse surrounding the traditional institutions, and aesthetic experimentation as well as political discussion is left to off-off companies, operating in the margins of both subsidy and publicity. Theatre in Europe seems not to have undergone the same deconstructive process as that of the visual arts, and one might ask whether theatre is still protected by the modernist illusion of artistic autonomy that once governed the art institution as a whole. The answer to this question is yes, but only insofar as artistic autonomy is a viable currency; an appropriate means to increase theatre’s market potential in the symbolic economy of culture.

Theatre in Europe has never reached the visual arts’ level of aesthetic autonomy. More than artistic presentation, theatre has always been a re-presentation: a more or less pertinent display of something prior to it. For this reason, governing principles of theatre have always been sought beyond the borders of the theatrical event. Theatre’s own worth has been examined only in its ability to conform to an ‘exceeding logic’ ( i.e. a logic that goes beyond the boundaries of the specific discourse in which one is operating). Consequently, there has not been much of an autonomous discourse to deconstruct in theatre.

Historically, theatre has played an important part in the nation building of young countries throughout Europe. And although its ambitions may no longer seem so lofty as establishing a supreme national essence, theatre still holds a primary function in representing national identity. This identity, however, is not an imagined common ground for the citizens of a particular nation, but rather an indicator of the nation’s cultural prosperity, its assets in the circuit of the symbolic economy.

European theatre today works mainly as a provider of symbolic capital, not only to the respective countries in intra-continental competition, but also to Europe itself as a continent and economic union. Through a high level of high culture, the challenges to European identity presented by the culture industry of Asia and the US are kept at bay. As are the challenges raised by contemporary aesthetic and political theory, which have long since left these ideological notions of art and culture behind.

Based on the assumption that commercial interest is an impediment to artistic excellence, theatres throughout Europe are sustained financially as autonomous institutions. However, this simulated autonomy actually becomes destabilised, as theatre simulates its own submission to the market economy!

This tendency that emerged in the early nineties has been central to the cultural politics of small countries like Norway and Denmark. Demands are made of the heavily financed theatre institutions of these countries to exercise a certain amount of hard-headed economic competence, in order that they regain some small share of what they have been given through public subsidy. And so, with a paradoxical twist to classic culture consecration, European theatre simulates market submission, to render its own withdrawal from the market legitimate.

All this has meant that Theatre has become a showcase of successes from other media. It has submitted to the circulation that renders the products of other media as trademarks, and, because it has withdrawn from the same circulation, it is deprived of the possibility of producing similar trademarks of its own. Which might explain last year’s production of Jerry Springer: the Opera at Britain’s Royal National Theatre, and the movie star Emanuelle Seigner playing Hedda Gabler in Paris, not to mention the many state-financed re-stagings of movie blockbusters on national theatres in Scandinavia, such as A Clockwork Orange, The Celebration and even The Full Monty.

Withdrawn from the circulation of cultural capital, theatre is deprived of the discussions governing contemporary aesthetics. Nevertheless, as a result of demands for its economic self-sufficiency, it is submitted to the same circulation. Through this double strategy, European countries maintain their theatres as impotent institutions, without commercial potential, but with strictly commercial boundaries. This mixture of withdrawal and submission ensures that theatre is kept alive as a symbol of cultural prosperity, while a discussion of theatre’s aesthetic, political and socio-economic premises is kept at bay. Now, as this discussion has been crucial to the proceedings of contemporary art, there is good reason to insist that theatre, not least from an aesthetic viewpoint, should be its next object of scrutiny.

Original Artout Participants

2007-05-14T10:21:00.000-07:00

Kate Pendry, Serguey Bolmat, Mark Boswell, Petra Groen, Alexander Kosolapov, Yevgeni Nikitin, Peral & John, Per Platou, Eric Pougeau, Mike Rimbaud, Meike Schmidt-Gleim, Ira Waldron, Anthony Zito, Jon Refsdal Moe, Anton Koslov.