The second group exhibition of the project Faster Than Your Local Delivery Service, presented by Matca artspace, questions happiness in the present context. In a time of market pressures and standards set by various industries, we explore how freedom and authenticity can be incorporated into artistic practices. These concepts (freedom and authenticity) are often manipulated by the branding strategies of large corporations or systems that put pressure on us to be as commercially valid as possible. The pressure to constantly improve and specialize sometimes alters or diverts us from what we would really do. Artistic practice is under-recognized as a profession, and because of this, many artists are forced to play the market game to overcome precarity. Thus their path often becomes automated, shaped by expectations of success, or compromised by standards and prices that do not reflect the true value of their work.
The exhibition questions the position of the artist and the production of art in capitalism, as well as the fall into irrelevance of certain mediums that are being replaced by various means oriented towards efficiency, seriality, immediacy and spectacular. Do we need to over-specialize, mass produce, ‘brand’ and ‘market’ ourselves? What are the mechanisms by which we can nevertheless ensure continuity and the confidence to continue within this field? Can we talk about art outside of the monetary context, and can there be compassion towards the exterior once we assimilate hyperindividualization? How do we choose to produce art in the face of cultural pressures of constantly self-defeating ourselves? These are some of the questions that the exhibition In Order to Make it Work, You Need to Make it Through attempts to answer.
Manipulating values such as freedom and authenticity has led to a culture of hyper-individualization. Providing the means for personal consumption gives us independence and freedom from others, distancing and isolating us in solitude. This culture also has powerful effects on the mentality of artistic production – and when we say artistic production, we mean both the processes in the artist’s studio, as well as the supporting mechanisms and alternative institutions that produce contexts for studio practice to be visible. The exhibition interrogates the possibility of being happy in the context where economic systems remain the same and how we choose to respond to the demands of aligning with what the art market evaluates/anticipates to be a valuable artistic product. On the one hand, the present contributions are demonstratively adhering to ways of adapting artistic practice according to market expectations. At the same time, some works ironically address our alienation and unconsciousness on a more general level or debate artistic labor and the point where we may or may not decide its value. (excerpt from the curatorial text)
Artists: Ana Avram / Adrian Ganea / Lucian Indrei / George Simon / Maria Brîneț / musz / Julia Kusztos / Ioana Iacob
Exhibition part of the project Faster Than Your Local Delivery Service, co-funded by AFCN. The project does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or how the results of the project may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the grant beneficiary.
