Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture
Thursday, February 10, 2011, 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.
Parsons The New School for Design
The Sheila C. Johnson Center for Design
Fifth Avenue at 13th Street, Ground Floor
New York City
Admission: Free
The Vera List Center for Art and Politics and the Sheila C. Johnson
Center for Design at Parsons celebrate the 99th Annual Conference of the
College Art Association, with a reception and workshop featuring the
artistic entrepreneurs of tomorrow.
Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture is both
a book launch for Gregory Sholette's new work of the same title, and a
concrete application of the principles laid out in the book. The book
argues that imagination and creativity in the art world originate and
thrive in the non-commercial sector. It examines the political economy
of art and business by highlighting interventionist and collective art
as the 'dark matter' of the art world. This dark matter is indispensible
to the survival of mainstream culture which it frequently opposes.
Two projects are lifted from the book’s pages and installed in the
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center lobby for passerby to participate.
Boston-based artist Cat Mazza offers a craftism workshop, based on the
work of her organization MicroRevolt. MicroRevolt projects investigate
the dawn of sweatshops in early industrial capitalism to inform the
current crisis of global expansion and the feminization of labor.
New York-based artist Jim Costanzo calls for the 2nd Whisky Rebellion:
A Distillation of American Spirit. The original Whiskey Rebellion was a
tax protest in Pennsylvania in the 1790s, during the presidency of
George Washington. The conflict was rooted in western dissatisfaction
with a 1791 excise tax on whiskey. The tax was a part of treasury
secretary Alexander Hamilton's program to centralize and fund the
national debt. Costanzo will be acting on behalf of the Aaron Burr
Society which has begun to distill whiskey without a license, in an act
of flagrant civil disobedience.
Participants
Jim Costanzo, artist, member of Aaron Burr Society
Cat Mazza, artist, founder of MicroRevolt
Gregory Sholette, artist, activist and author, Dark Matter: Art and
Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture
Accompanied by reception with refreshments.
Presented on occasion of the 99th Annual Conference of the College Art
Association and the publication of Gregory Sholette’s Dark Matter: Art
and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture, New York: Plutobooks,
2010
The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School
66 West 12th Street, Rm 918
New York, NY 10011
212.229.2436
vlc@newschool.edu
