Bob and Roberta Smith: Art Amnesty
Many artists delude themselves into believing that they are
promising, productive artists when they would live much more fulfilled
and useful lives engaged in proper employment. I PROMISE NEVER TO MAKE
ART AGAIN provides a baptism of necessary real life and allows artists
to "Get Real." Ditch a life of poverty and precarious self-employment!
Don't miss a life-changing opportunity.
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| If I lived in N.Y. I could get rid of a pile of bad art, like this one. |
On view October 26, 2014–March 8, 2015
Bob and Roberta Smith are issuing a call to Artists. Pack it
in. Bob and Roberta Smith are delighted to offer an Amnesty for your Bad
Art. Turn in your brushes and video cameras. Hand in your chisels and
marble.
Bob and Roberta Smith are offering an opportunity for artists to
dispose of their artwork at MoMA PS1, and to retire from making art.
Beginning October 2, artists are invited to deposit their art in
dumpsters located in the museum’s courtyard, which will be emptied as
needed throughout the period of the
Art Amnesty. Those who wish
to exhibit their work one final time before it is destroyed may bring
their art to the 2nd Floor Main Galleries, where museum staff will
install it for public view. The museum will accept work under the
Art Amnesty during regular hours, subject to certain restrictions outlined in the
submission guidelines. The exhibition reprises and expands upon their
Art Amnesty originally presented at Pierogi Gallery in 2002.
As part of the
Art Amnesty, the Smiths will also make
available a pledge form at the museum that can be signed by any artist
or member of the public: I PROMISE NEVER TO MAKE ART AGAIN. Those who
commit themselves will receive an official I AM NO LONGER AN ARTIST
badge designed by Bob and Roberta Smith, and shall be invited to create
one final drawing for inclusion in the
Art Amnesty gallery
exhibition, using materials provided onsite. Those wishing simply to
discard a work will be asked to sign a pledge that reads I NEVER WANT TO
SEE THIS WORK OF ART AGAIN.
While the
Art Amnesty provides an occasion for artists to
clear out their studios, it also serves other needs. Those who have been
the victims of gifts of art, for example, are invited to dispose of
these unwanted aesthetic presents at the museum. And as the Smiths note,
“Many successful artists have recently voiced embarrassment that their
work commands high prices. Artists may also use the opportunity of the
Art Amnesty
to expel certain works of art from the art market and demote them to
objects unburdened by grand expectations and dashed dreams.” The Smiths
will be the first to contribute to the
Art Amnesty, discarding a batch of work previously exhibited in New York.
At the conclusion of the
Art Amnesty, the museum will securely dispose of all art works contributed to the exhibition and dumpsters.
At the opening of the exhibition on October 26, Bob and Roberta Smith will also organize an
Art Party
at MoMA PS1, at which children will be encouraged to make art with
their families using art materials available at the event. Beginning at
the Art Party and throughout the run of the
Art Amnesty, a
third pledge form will be available for signing, which states I WILL
ENCOURAGE CHILDREN TO BE ALL THAT THEY CAN BE. CHOOSE ART AT SCHOOL.
These pledges will be collected, along with "first drawings" children
make and wish to contribute, and mailed to local politicians to
encourage arts funding and arts education.
“The personal journey for most artists starts with enthusiasm and
joy, and ends, if the artist does not have huge success, in embarrassed
children taking their dead parents' work to the dump,” the Smiths
explain. “Taken together, the
Art Amnesty and
Art Party explore the full arc of the life of an artist.”
The
Art Party was initiated in Brooklyn in 2011 “to provide a
creative yet critical discourse of hope in response to the Tea Party’s
discourse of austerity and despair.” As the Smiths stated at its
inception: “The
Art Party stands for stimulus and sensible long-term measures to rebuild American confidence. The
Art Party says singers make America sing and dancers make America dance. The
Art Party celebrates that innovation comes from sheets of blank paper and pencils. The
Art Party has a broadly liberal and humanistic agenda on other issues. Where the Tea Party is hawkish the
Art Party is peaceful. The
Art Party is opposed to the death penalty and supports women’s rights. The
Art Party
is not a formal political party but rather a pressure group and natural
home for progressive liberal people to unite on issues of agreement.”
The Smiths have subsequently organized
Art Party events
throughout the United Kingdom to protest the British government’s
proposed eradication of art from the British school syllabus.
A film that depicts the story of the
Art Party, directed by
the Smiths with Tim Newton, will also be screened at the opening. A
feature documentary about the work of Bob and Roberta Smith,
Make Your Own Damn Art: the World of Bob and Roberta Smith (2012), directed by John Rogers, will be shown throughout the run of the
Amnesty.
Drawing equally from conceptual performance history and nonsense
literature, as well as tenets of British empiricism and the rhetoric of
political campaigns, Bob and Roberta Smith's allergy to pretension and
preciosity can lend an offending bluntness or seeming nihilistic
absurdity to their actions. The Smiths ask:
Why are some people artists while others are not? Was Joseph
Beuys an idiot when he said everyone is an artist? Do artists think they
are a cut above the rest of us? Are the arts a good in themselves, or
is it much, much, more complicated than that?
