Group Show for Daniel Pink
@ Vega Estates
723 W 16th St, Chicago, IL 60616
Opening Saturday, September 19th, from 6PM - 10PM
Featuring Curt Bozif and Matthew Metzger, with Amy Adler, Conrad Bakker, Vince Leo and Sharon Lockhart. Curated by Lane Relyea.
The copy has been redeemed, no longer the illegitimate usurper, counterfeit, no longer the naysayer, critic of authenticity, depriver of aura. That was long ago, during the age of spectacle, ideology, institutional critique, unionism, a middle class, before narrowcasting, prosumers, Readymade magazine, the home office, being your own boss (albeit with increased working hours and no health care or job security). Before the rise of what Daniel Pink calls Free Agent Nation. (And what group of professionals best fits the profile of today’s free agents? Artists, of course. As Mr. Pink, author of the famous “The MFA is the New MBA” article, himself argues.) In this new era the copy becomes a facilitator of agency, it enhances communication and distribution. The offspring of conceptual art and its shift away from heavily anchored objects toward fast-moving information and publicity, the copy now reaches beyond gray bureaucracies and big institutions to embrace diverse communities and networks. It helps artists and artworks be gregarious, make the rounds, work the scene. Praise Xerox. But there’s another task that the copy has been pressed into the service of. Think witness photography, forensics, archive fever. Here the orientation is retrospective, drawn toward unseemly and unmanageable aftermath, its gaze by turns fascinated, traumatized, melancholic. Just look at the artworks gathered in this show. More dumbstruck than mobile. More fixated than free. Less DIY. More CSI.
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