[lbo-talk] Gang of Four offers fans vials of their own blood to raise money for a new album

Dennis Claxton ddclaxton at earthlink.net
Wed Apr 7 07:24:24 PDT 2010


Does Tom Jones wiping his brow with underwear thrown on stage and then throwing it back come in here too?

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=27330&tabview=text&texttype=10

In May 1961, while he was living in Milan, Piero Manzoni produced ninety cans of Artist's Shit. Each was numbered on the lid 001 to 090. Tate's work is number 004. A label on each can, printed in Italian, English, French and German, identified the contents as '"Artist's Shit", contents 30gr net freshly preserved, produced and tinned in May 1961.' In December 1961 Manzoni wrote in a letter to the artist Ben Vautier: 'I should like all artists to sell their fingerprints, or else stage competitions to see who can draw the longest line or sell their shit in tins. The fingerprint is the only sign of the personality that can be accepted: if collectors want something intimate, really personal to the artist, there's the artist's own shit, that is really his.' (Letter reprinted in Battino and Palazzoli p.144.)

http://www.blacknetart.com/coco.html

Keith Townsend Obadike is a multimedia artist based in New Haven. Last month he attempted to sell his blackness on ebay as a net.performance. The description of what buyers would obtain in exchange for money was full of ironic but ellusive references to the history of objectifying black bodies in the slave trade and the contemporary commodifying of black culture. He received a wide range of responses from ebay visitors, black entrepreneurs, and European net.art curators. Four days after posting his "item" Keith's sale was terminated by ebay, the reason given was that it was found "inappropriate". In the following interview he assesses the reception of his net.performance and the colonialist underpinningss of the navigational vocabulary of the internet.



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