lecture

Andre Breton

admin — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 16:15:14 +0000

Andre Breton
March au puce Paris, Old Europe 1939

meshwork market -fruit

admin — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 16:08:38 +0000

Meshwork market: fruit
Nowa Huta 2024

Meshwork Market

admin — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 13:35:10 +0000

Meshwork Market
Nowa Huta 2024

Wolfsburg: Open Knowledge T5 spine

admin — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 12:14:10 +0000

Installing Open Knowledge T5 spine
Wolfsburg, 2036

Huta or Factory

admin — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:56:52 +0000

The Lenin Steelworks
Nowa Huta 1998

Meshwork Markets

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IndustrialtownFuturism: The Return of Meshwork Markets

Amended transcript of a lecture delivered to the Meshwork of Marketeers, Cracow middle-europe 16th October 2049, and is released under a Creative Commons: Attribution ShareAlike v2.5 License

Free Trade

admin — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 20:19:20 +0000

Sub-Title

Date of Publication

October 2003

Location

Publisher

Manchester Art Gallery: Manchester

Designer

Anne Odling-Smee

Body

The catalogue that accompanies the Free Trade project includes historical research; drawings, models and photographs of the gallery installation; previously unpublished archive material, and specially commissioned essays

The idea of Free trade is fundamental to the city of Manchester.

In 1812 the anti-corn law league set out to break the restrictive practices of the aristocratic landowners, and their ability to lobby Parliament to impose import duty on grain. The middle class merchants and manufacturers who advocated Free trade understood that cheap food would mean cheap labour and increased profits. The subsequent triumph of Free trade enabled Manchester to become the largest import/export and distribution centre in England, and subsequently the British Empire. Throughout the mid 19th century the expansion of trade enabled the city to evolve into the second largest centre for commercial banking and joint stock trading; transforming itself from a manufacturer into the centre of a global market-place. Of course, the explosion of trade and extrusion of wealth began to find expression in a different kind of ‘cultural’ capital.

A stunning example of the complex web of financial and cultural exchange in Manchester, and a perfect vehicle by which to trace their movements is the Beatson Blair Bequest. George Beatson Blair was one of three brothers -James, Alexander, and George- who were all partners in a cotton import/export and shipping company. And like other newly wealthy middle class merchants, James and George turned their financial profits into cultural goods.

On George’s death, the executors of the estate estimated the collection to consist of around 30,000 artefacts, of which 5,000 were paintings. The collection filled the five entertaining rooms, twenty bedrooms, offices for staff, bathrooms, attics, halls, landings, staircases, workshops and even the pig-sty’s of the brothers house in Whalley Range. Each room was overflowing. An inventory of 4894 objects exists in the gallery archive, of which around 458 objects were eventually accessioned by the Manchester Gallery.

Free trade is not only a historical event, it is the origin of the forces of globalisation

Through the idea of free trade it's possible to trace how national interests have been superseded by corporate priorities, and cultural goods have moved from being a by-product of economic wealth, to its source. In Manchester for instance manufacturing has been replaced by music and television industries, sport has become business, and museum and gallery visits -linked to tourism – have become beacons of economic regeneration.

Directors Foreword, Virginia Tandy

Free Trade/free art Art Historian Julian Stallabrass

An essay that suggests that the autonomy and supplementary 'freedom' (see Ruskin below, and Theodor Adorno's Aesthetic Theory) of art, masks the violence implicit in Free Trade.

Reflective Practice Artist and writer Dan Smith

With the memorable phrase [.....] 'in other words, the world has taken on the resemblance of Manchester in its era of radical development'. Dan Smith's essay locates the Free Trade project within a wider context of our practice, current 'museum' interventions by artists, and the historical development of Manchester.

Global Markets investment manager Toby Nangle

The scale and complexity of deregulated -read free- financial debt markets, overshadows the entire production and circulation of goods, of the planet. Financial debt, drives free trade and we are all caught within its vortex.

Also features rare lectures previously delivered in Manchester

John Ruskin A Joy Forever; And its Price in the Market.

10th & 13th July 1857.

Ruskin’s extraordinary lecture attempts to build a political economy for art. He suggests that all economies require the wise management of labour, and could easily be divided into three components.

1. applying your labour rationally
2. preserving its produce carefuly
3. distributing its produce seasonably.

With devastating effects, this ideal economy is then laid over the production, storage and distribution of the art of his time; a model that seems unchanged and still relevant today.

And William Morris Art Wealth and Riches

read on 6th March 1883 at a Gathering of the Royal Manchester Institute.

In this brilliant and provocative lecture, writer, craftsman and socialist William Morris challenges the merchants and manufacturers of Manchester. He suggests that Free Trade, and the industrial reproduction of ugly and uneccesary things denies equality, freedom, and happiness for all. Consequently, contemporary art - produced under theses conditions - is nothing but the pretence of art. With uncanny prescience, in this challenging and provocative lecture Morris describes our current confusion; between art and fashion, art and entertainment or art and celebrity.

Description

ISBN/ASIN

0-901673-61-9

ArtWords Link

IndustrialTownFuturism

admin — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 20:36:49 +0000

Sub-Title

100 years of Wolfsburg and Nowa Huta

End Date

14 Nov 2006

Start Date

10 Dec 2005

Location

Kunstverein Wolfsburg - Lazia Nowej Theatre Nowa Huta, Cracow

Body

Curated by Jakub Szreder and Martin Kaltwaser

As part of a group of artists, researchers and academics, we have been invited to research and imagine the future centenary of these two industrial towns.

Both towns evolved from the middle of the last century, and both were planned completely around the image and function of the factory. Since 1939 Wolfsburg has been the home and global headquarters of theVolkswagen Group, and since 1947 Nowa Huta grew around the formerly Lenin and now Sendzimira steelworks.

The Fordist-factory has dominated these towns.

So for industrialtownfuturism we turned our attention to the archaic social formation of the informal market. The future disappearance of industrial or monopolized trade elsewhere, will enable ‘street’ markets to reassert themselves; like a virus suppressed by the bodies immune system, markets are always awaiting the optimum conditions to flourish. A market is not designed as an aesthetic object, and yet there is a beautiful logic of practice: markets are self-regulating networks that evolve a familiar structure from heterogonous parts.

Markets endure.

An integral Industrualtownfurturism symposium included contributions from sociologist and urbanists; Wulf Tessin, Jaroslaw Urbanski, Albrecht Goschel, Ewa Charkiewicz, Arno Paulus and Maciej Gdula.

view the catalogue as a PDF file IndustrialTownFuturism

The exhibition is in two parts

Part 1 was exibited at the Kunstverein Wolfsburg

Part 2 was exibited at the Laznia Nowej Theatre Nowa Huta.

At the opening of the exhibition in Nowa Huta we performed a lecture. Here is the amended transcript of The return of Meshwork Markets delivered to the Meshwork of Marketeers, Cracow Middle-Europe 16th October 2049.

Reprise

admin — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 13:34:59 +0000

This is the full text of the lecture, without annotations

REPRISE

A project by Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska
on the occasion of Independence an exhibition at the South London Gallery
1st June â€“ 3rd August 2003

Souvenir Pamphlet

Price 20p
A SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY OF THE SOUTH LONDON ART GALLERY, LIBRARY AND LECTURE HALL
-From its Foundation in 1868-

Addressed to the council of the South London Fine Art Gallery January 4th 1893

The Institution now being a quarter of a century old, and Mr Westlake and myself being the only members familiar with this history as a whole, it seemed worthwhile to recount a summary of its history, especially as many people still think it is supported by ratepayers through the County Council.

A Pocket Companion

admin — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 12:35:57 +0000

Pour Les Curieux: A Pocket Companion was the exhibition catalogue and guide for Pour Les Curieux our project to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the MusÃ©e d'art et d'histoire and the Ecole supÃ©rieure d'art visuel, Geneva. In collaboration with Sylvia Alberton, Adrien Beck, Donatella Bernardi, & Michael Henry.

lecture

Andre Breton

meshwork market -fruit

Meshwork Market

Wolfsburg: Open Knowledge T5 spine

Huta or Factory

Meshwork Markets

IndustrialtownFuturism: The Return of Meshwork Markets

Free Trade

Sub-Title

Date of Publication

Location

Publisher

Designer

Body

Description

ISBN/ASIN

ArtWords Link

Related Films

Related Projects

Related Publications

IndustrialTownFuturism

Sub-Title

End Date

Start Date

Location

Body

Related Films

Related Projects

Related Publications

Reprise

REPRISE

Souvenir Pamphlet

A Pocket Companion