About the exhibition:
An exhibition at the Priness Alice pub on the edge the financial quagmire of the City of London, scrutinising art's and the artist's relationship with money, presented throughout the pub and on its roof on structures designed by Julika Gittner of Scare in the Community.
Non-commercial artists have always feared the corruption of their ideological position by 'selling-out', i.e. engaging with the reality of commercial practices. This perspective is reinforced amongst intellectuals with expectations that serious artists must stay clear of the corrupting effects of financial considerations for their work. However, the general public still sees financial success as the main indicator of an art works relevance.
This exhibition brings together a number of artists whose work scrutinizes assumptions about art's commercial value, addressing themes of selling out, commodification and the link between art and money.
Further Information:
-Visit the Scare in the Community website-View the video documentation on Vimeo
About our work
The exhibition featured 09.11.09, video documentation of an intervention we performed in the city of Linz, Austria to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, the act which signified the fall of the Iron Curtain and paved the way for the export of Western neo-liberalism. To mark this day, exactly 30 years on, we decided to give up one day of our combined wage as artists in residence in Linz, Austria, sending a 50 Euro note eastward down the river Danube through nine European countries to the Black Sea.The Danube, which dissects Western and Eastern Europe, in the past formed part of the Iron Curtain and today continues to function as a geo-political frontier, delineating a number of national borders whilst, as a major trade route, acting as a fundamental channel for the flow of capital. The bridge from which our bottle set sail is still regarded as a symbol of the economic and cultural rise of Linz during the Nazi period, and now links the landmark contemporary art spaces of the city including the Ars Electronica Centre, all of which were jewels in the crown of Linz's cultural "offer" in its year as European Capital of Culture 2009.
Kate Fallon-Cousins, Luke Cooke-Yarborough, Kelda Free + David Brazier, Julika Gittner, Martin Lau, Ilka Leukefeld, Sophio Medoidze, Jon Purnell, Natasha Rees, Chris Shaw, UNIT (Dan Simpkins + Penny Whitehead)