Artist/ Administrator/ Curator

For ANTIFREEZE 2009 I documented the connection between myself and punters with an exchange of contact details (business card) and documentation of this exchange (stamped receipt). My stand was an opportunity to discuss the assets of young artists, whom often acquire various skills throughout their career to pay the bills.

Punters were offered a choice of three different cards, with the additional choice of proposing an alternative job on which to collaborate according to my current position; having studied Fine Art, soon to study Curation and having worked in many other positions to pay the rent (currently Administrator). These cards describe my anomalous position when trading my skills in society.

 The three business cards on offer

My stall table was tiled with the business cards and their gradual dissemination forms both a visual and conceptual dimension to the work. The three types of card Artist/ Administrator/ Curator vary in shade, so one was able to judge the fluctuating value of skills my throughout the day.

Installation views at the beginning, middle and end of the day

Each punter was given a receipt, made in a carbon duplicate book. This book forms an ongoing work. I swapped details with over twenty people and had chats averaging ten minutes comparing careers and skills.

Artist Statement

This work has emerged with an interest in the position I occupy as an emerging artist/ curator/administrator. I work in a context of gradual crisis in arts education and a mire of questions around professionalisation. Young artists today can spend their time usefully googling other artists, writing funding applications and milling around private views networking. After spending a lot of my time on aforementioned activities, and not a lot of time making work, the obvious move was to have these activities form my art practice. Another inevitable and time consuming activity is working as an administrator for a temp agency. For years I have compartmentalised my practice as an artist and my job as an administrator. However, I have come to question what expertise I possess, and how administration includes the use of skills not least separate from my art practice.

I am more proficient at taking minutes than screen printing because of the division of my time based upon economic need. In this work my relatively poor technical art fabrication skills are employed to promote a seemingly non-existent art practice which has become series of clerical tasks, haplessly learned keeping my bank balance afloat. The realms of art and business are unavoidably blurred.

 When considering what to produce for ANTIFREEZE 2009 I found myself asking what skills do I possess and what do I hope to gain from my participation/ the participation of other in this work? The work responds to the overall theme of the Car Boot Sale; the exchange/ relationship between artist and punter whilst using my skills to shamelessly promote myself and gain exposure as the market requires me to.