File spoon-archives/surrealist.archive/surrealist_1996/96-06-11.135, message 199


Date: Sun, 09 Jun 1996 21:31:59 -0400
From: Michael Betancourt <mwb2-AT-mosquito.com>
Subject: Re: exhibition-- DREAMS


Dreams are a good thing to have.

But if we get carried away with our dreaming, the exhibition fades away
because it must be more than just a nice dream to talk about. It will cost
money. It will be limited in may ways, not least because the internet (while
it makes some things easier) does have very real physical limitations. What
follows is a comment on all this.

...

>> Following Lynn's disclousure, it would seem the next step is to 
>> consider who these artists will be, so I'm going to jot down some notes 
>> to consider.

Lynn's disclosure simply said that if we confine ourselves to the electronic
world, providing that we can get someone to donate space we would have very
few expenses.
The problem is the very few expenses -- probably amounting to the US$3-5,000
figure I suggested in the summary yesterday.
This does not provide for anything that would make this exhibition anything
more than a standard electronic exhibition (in effect) because it does not
connect to the world. This is why we do need money (ignoring that none of us
has said they have the money to spend for this).
This is also why we need print ads in the arts magazines.
This is why we should (even if it is only a static version of what was IN
the exhibit when it opened) have a catalogue.

There is a general tendency to say that the internet is a wonderful, easy
solution to any problem we put before it. It isn't. It's something that's
(comparatively) very new with many untried potentials. It is also more on
the fringes than "outsider art" has been in the past. If we neglect the
norms for real-world exhibitions, we will not open new ground. We will be
setting ourselves up to be ignored.

Lynn's discourse suggests that we don't need money all we need is computer
know-how. This is one of the great myths of new technologies (going back I'm
sure to the invention of writing.)

...

>> Several people have mentioned artists in terms of new techniques, new 
>> media, etc., in an attempt to not simply repeat a past exhibition, 
>> would this mean that we:
>> 
>> 1) leave OUT any historical section?

I think this would be a mistake; at the same time the estates controlling
the work of artists now dead may not be very cooperative. We'll just have to
wait and see.

>> 2) Invite only living artists, or presently "working" artists?
>> 3) and what about artists who were surrealiste, but now work in another 
>>       "ism"

It seems we should invite those who would give a contribution to the
exhibition that would further 'surrealism' in some manner, even if that is
only to show the breadth of material being produced. 
These are sticky questions, and not ones that we can easily answer. Perhaps
some sort of "review board" would be in order, although:
1. who would be on it and
2.  what criteria they would use 
are both valuable questions that would have to be addressed. #2 may be
answered simply by answering #1.


>Michael B. [and Pierre] had the idea that any new surrealist exhibition
would >need to express the connections between surrealism and the latest
scientific >researches. 
>Well, these researches are online and we can create links to our exhibition; a 
>giant democratic exchange of desires. Somewhere in 'Arcanum 17', Breton 
>suggested an encyclopaedia of everything; and here we can begin to make it. 

Linking to an article/site is not equivalent to showing a connection. If we
make this mistake now, it will come back to haunt us later.

[Also, there's a Borges story about a Library of Everything. One of the
senses this story gives is that such a collection is itself useless...]

>> Will any one of us, or any group of us use any system of acceptance or 
>> rejection of submitted work, or will we simply accept whatever an 
>> invited artist decides to send?
>> 
>> If we are to have a system of acceptance, should we discuss this, or 
>> simply leave it up to the selected group to decide. This gets back to 
>> Stuarts asking for "scope of the exhibition".

See my comments above.

...

>> Barrett asked how many artists should be represented, and used 200 as 
>> an amount.
>The idea of a growing exhibition does away with the need to limit numbers as 
>you would in  a gallery. The only limit will be the number of people we can 
>encourage to go online.

If only this were actually true. 

There is a limit to the amount of space available. Once we cross a
threashold of megs, it starts costing us $ to put this exhibition on. At the
same time, places like art.net should they be willing to give us space for
it, will give a specific amount of space only. A perpetually growing
exhibition that ultimately includes thousands of works, while a good dream,
is not something that we can do without having problems with whoever houses
this exhibit, unless we do it ouselves, setting up our own web server on an
independant machine.
That's the part that costs money.

It's fun to dream about what we COULD DO, but what we need to focus on to
make this happen is WHAT WE CAN DO NOW and WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN.

For this reason we need some sold information. See the summary, and
Williams' additions (re:funding).

>The idea of a growing exhibition does away with the need to limit numbers as 
>you would in  a gallery. The only limit will be the number of people we can 
>encourage to go online.

There is also a second issue here that I must object to: that the only
people to be included will be on-line. By doing this we exclude all the
artists who do not have the money to get on line, which is essentially an
exclusion based solely upon where the artist lives, who they know that IS
on-line and how much money they have that they can spend for such toys as
computers and modems, etc.
To do this would be immoral, and would hurt us more than it would help.

...

>> Should we all make lists?

Personally, I think we should start with the organized groups (present/past)
that have already been mentioned and work forward from there. This would be
the fastest route to getting contributors.

-- Michael Betancourt
                    E-mail: 	mwb2-AT-mosquito.com
 Index to Web Sites:	http://www.mosquito.com/~mwb2



   

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