1987 first international art slaves market show

8/14/2019 1987 First International Art Slaves Market Show

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EATING ART:DO YOU THINK IT IS POSSIBLE TO EATANDY WARHOL IF YOU ARE EATING A CAMPBELLSOUP CAN? A Phenomenological Inquiry

On February 18 of 1987, at Patrizia Anichini Gallery, in New York, the day before theopening of the symposium The Dematerialization of Art, organized at New YorkUniversity by the ICASA-International Center for Advanced Studies in Art, SandroDernini staged Do you think it possible to eat Andy Warhol if you eat a Campbell soup?

It was conceivedas the continuation of his inquiry for the prof. David W. Ecker's NYUcourse Phenomenology and the Arts.13 artistswere invited to eat a Campbell soupand to answer to a written questionnaire that Sandro made as a phenomenologicalinquiry: Do you think it is possible that you have eaten Andy Warhol when before youhave eaten that Campbell soup two minutes ago? Suspend your belief before to answerto these questions: Answer- yes or nor? What you mean? How do you know? How wasthe taste? Is it true or not? Who was the subject? Who was the object? Description ofthe experience. As napkins, they used the brochures of the Dematerialization of ArtSymposium, in order to be read, during the digestion, before to answer to a writtenquestionnaire. At the end, it came out that majority of participants believed to haveeaten Warhol during their ritual performance.It happened, that night Andy Warhol died.


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Do you think it is possible to eat Andy Warholif you are eating a Campbell soup can? A Phenomenological Inquiry

Peter Grass, Helene Valentin, Bernd Naber

Franco Ciarlo and Patrizia Anichini , New York 1987, photos by Lynne Kanter


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Eating Art History

Concept image by Sandro Dernini, New York 1987


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The Dematerialization of Andy Warhol:A Phenomenological Inquiry

ICASA-New York University, New York 1987

Willoughby Sharp, Sandro Dernini, Lynne Kanter, Souyun Yi, Franco Ciarlo, Joan Waltermath,

Peter Grass, Carol Drury, Amy Paskin, Donald Sheridan, Bernd Naber, Patrizia Anichini, Helen Valentin,Christian Chiausa, at Patrizia Anichini Gallery, New York 1987, photo by Lynne Kanter


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In the beginning of 1987, in Amsterdam, at the CosaaiProduction, Willem Brugman opened a Plexus working station to assist the art slavesboat in its journey on the historical triangle slaves trade route Europe-Africa-Americas.Around the same time, in Cagliari, at Antonello Dessi's studio, it was staged the artshow "Bring your Serpent".

Studio Dessi, Cagliari 1987


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THE SERPENT OF STONE:THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL ART SLAVES MARKETSHOW

On July 1- 4 of 1987, at the megalithic sanctuary of Sa Itria of Gavoi, a small village atthe center of the island of Sardinia, the Plexus art co-opera n.4 The Serpent of Stonewas staged as the first international art slave market show in modern art history, withmore 160 artists, from 23 different countries, who answered to the 1986 art slaves boatcall. It was presented as four days of art and science, connected via an experimentalcomputer network by the Dax Group of Carnegie Mellon and Franco Meloni of theUniversity of Cagliari, as a multi-media fractal show dedicated to the Heinrich Hertzs100 years electromagnetic celebration. As scales of the Serpent broadcast slow-scamgraphic interpretations linked artists and scientists around the world, all celebrating andinterpreting free deconstructions of the metaphor of the Serpent, as a communal

performance of art freedom and independence.

Graphics by Richard Milone, New York 1987


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Plexus: An International Travelling Factory Metaphor

Artwork by Stefano Asili, Cagliari 1987

Plexus is an international recallnetwork, produced by the artist inthe first person as author and

producer of its own project. Plexususes the metaphor as a travellingfactory of concept-images toproduce global art projects (Plexusart co-operas) made in the 80's forthe critic consumer of the materialculture of the 90's.Plexus coproduction structure isalways in evolution and is built by participant coproducers. Plexusproject is schematically divided by

integrated phases of marketingmix: promotion, production, price,and replacement.The participation is made throughindividual projects and independent productions. In orderto participate at the beginning toPlexus project, it is necessary thefollowing:- participation in Plexus is madeonly by the delivery of a project

whose the artist in the first personis the effective author/producer;- to plan a Plexus calendar for thenext activities of common interest;- to deliver its own project/productwithin the agreed Plexus calendartogether with the deliveries ofother coproducers;- to develop Plexus as aninternational consortium/umbrellaof independent art producers;- to avoid the bureaucratic time-

space of traditional culturalorganization;- to learn to profit from the directdialogue, without mediators oragents, between the artist in thefirst person and private investorsas "angels."


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The Serpent of Stone: The First International Art Slaves Market Show

On the ferry boat to Sardinia 1987, photo by Laura Squarcia

Assane MBaye, Gianni Villella, Mayor Salvatore Lai, Sandro Dernini, Armando Soldaini, Miguel Algarin,Willem Brugman, Franco Meloni, Paolo Maltese

Installation by Arturo Lindsay, Gavoi, Sardinia 1987


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Performance by Joelle Brun Cosme, Jocelyn Fiset, Gavoi, Sardinia 1987, photo by A. Lindsay

Jocelyn Fiset, Lorenzo Pace, Gavoi, Sardinia 1987, photos by Stefano Grassi


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Installation by Antonello Dessi

Installation by Anna Saba Gavoi1987, photos by Stefano Grassi


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Fakher Al Koudsi

Telema installation by Luigi Mazzarelli, Gabriella Locci, Gaetano Brundu, A. Caracciolo, Gavoi 1987


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Telema installation, artwork by Gaetano Brundu, Cagliari, Sardinia 1987


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Performance by Luis Lopes, photo by Stefano Grassi

Micaela Serino

Gavoi, Sardinia 1987, photos by S. Grassi


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Installation by Wanda Nazzari Installation by Andrea Portas

Willem Brugman, John Howard, Gavoi, Sardinia 1987, photos by S. Grassi


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Sabina Maccuri, Miguel Algarin, Gavoi, Sardinia 1987, photo by S. GrassiBodyBee Calling from the 21st Century

XXXIII

After transplanting/repairing body organs,at what point is self still of woman born?after becoming a beehive of transplants,

grafted parts, after replacements.is there still a self from woman born?

after biological break downand up to date repairing,

will self be a patch-work-of-spare-parts?

2019: Synthetic membranes introducedto repair stomachs, intestines, kidneys.

2021: Fluorocarbon liquids/base forartificial blood/patented in 2008/

will with synthetic polyvinyl hydrogel replacenatural vitreous liquids.

2034: Chemical muscles: still shunnedby body engineers developing techniques

to force the body into regeneratingits missing or damaged parts.

2045: Techniques for grafts to brain areacontrolling physiological processes

are in daily use/all work on cerebralcognitive thought areas is advanced

though performed selectively.2050: Alien tissue ruled accessorygraft receiver retains the I original/

foreign tissue subdued and acclimatedby self of woman born still risking to persist.after body, after repairs, after transplants,

after self, after beehive of organs, after grafts,after patch-work replaces self of woman born,

after after, after that! What and where?

Miguel Algarin


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Lorenzo Pace, Gavoi, Sardinia 1987, photo by Stefano Grassi

Sabina Maccuri, Marco Brega, Rudy Baroncini, Gavoi, Sardinia 1987


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Artwork by Britt Smelvaer

Artwork by Randi HansenGavoi, Sardinia 1987, photos by S. Grassi

This event took form in the confrontation,collision, and encounter among allplayers of this challenge-game-show on

the star system of the art market.It was played mainly by two teams:A) The co-authors of the anti-libretto foran art co-opera, made as an unitary andcompressed presentation of thesynchronized collective deconstruction ofthe serpent;B) The authors of the libretto for an artopera as a modular and selectiveconstruction of individual art-works.The stake was the apple of the art star

system. The supreme judge was theSerpent. The artist in the first person wasthe absolute winner of this Plexus game,playing as slave and working as artist,free indeed to express itself withoutcurators and critics.My image as Plexus artistic director,since the art slaves boat's departurefrom New York in 1986, was of a slavestrader who was forcing time-space ofindividual artists to chain them (no

always successfully) into the Plexusframe of an art slave ship escaped fromthe New York City art market control.My task was to frame the art slavejourney as an unitary total theatre withina Plexus strategy of a marketing controlof the global image of Il Serpente diPietra as the first historical art slavesmarket event.Inside the Plexus event, there was the

violence of very strong emotions of 160

artists, evoked by the extraordinary panorama around the megalithicsanctuary-stage and produced by particular conditions in which thisinternational autofinanced journey landedin Sardinia after many difficulties. At the end, in a modern art sacrifice,following the Plexus art logic strategymap against the pyramid of the star artsystem, I burned my image of Plexus

artistic director. Sandro Dernini, 1987


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A Modern Art Sacrifice: The End of Plexus Artistic Director

Sandro Dernini and Assane MBaye

Performance by Lorenzo Pace, Gavoi, Sardinia 1987, photos by Stefano Grassi


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Passport for Plexus Serpent

PASSPORTFOR

PLEXUS SERPENT

Passport for Plexusis a traveling paperto fly fromPurgatorio toParadise, on boardthe PLEXUS ArtSlaves Ship, sailedin 1986 from NewYork City, withEve, Plexus ArtCo-Opera N.3. It willland in Dakar in1988.

Celt Editions, Cagliari, Sardinia 1987

Artwork by Silvio Betti, Rome 1986 Paolo Maltese, Milan 1986


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Plexus: An Infinite SerpentMistery-Reason: the artist at the confluence of these ever-changing words. PLEXUSis therefore a metaphor in which observations, analyses, discussions, reflections,actions, pilot-shows, stretched to encourage the continuation of research, all come

together, and like an infinite serpent rising up to tree of knowledge, renews unity andconsistence to self-conscious and common research. In this way, by adventuring intomists of metaphor, myth and archetypes, one is brought closer to the mysterioussince the metaphor is enemy of appearance, is the damp earth, and is theroots.Behind it lies the mystery of the future, the continuation of imaginary threads stillbe defined and fully elaborated, as PLEXUS looks for. Thus, PLEXUS project doesnot set itself easy objectives, so in an Event of such vast size as that of Gavoi(Sardinia), and based on very ambitious goals, (but also still very uncertain), thedanger of rhetoric, indefiniteness and superficiality continually remain a possibletrap.At this point Cicero springs to my mind, who used to ask himself, howsoothsayers managed not to laugh when they met each other. The Gavoi opportunity

has been useful, useful because it allowed contacts and feed-backs between artistswho came from different areas, and who did not know each other. Among these werethe inhabitants of Gavoi, a town in the centre of the Barbagia of Sardinia thataccepted what could be defined as being - for Gavoi - a challenge. It was an importantoccasion for the inhabitant of Gavoi to reflect on what to do in the future, just as forPLEXUS to find proof for an interdisciplinary dialogue, got out from the usual artisticcontexts (and scientific). This is the point I should like to emphasise: that whathappened in Gavoi could become History, in other words it could be the catalyst ofreflections for everybody, for PLEXUS, thoughts which in their turn produce morethoughts and future realities for everyone, all in a continual spiral (the serpent),towards a future growth which is History.

Paolo Maltese, Milan 1987

Concept image by Sandro Dernini, Rome 2000


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Plexus Art Logic Strategy Map

Concept image by Sandro Dernini, Sardinia 1987


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Plexus Art Logic Strategy Map Deconstruction

Image Concept by Sandro Dernini, Rome 2000

Plexus Immunological Art Messenger

Artwork by Gaetano Brundu, Cagliari, Sardinia 1986


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by Assane MBaye, Dakar 1987

Plexus invites you to travel to Dakar through a journey of the mind of ourtimes by the invisible Serpent Ningki-Nangka into the fog of the metaphor,into the animism, the ancient Negro-African religion that is not by magic orby fetishism, but by an authentic African way to communicate to theUniverse and to spirituals forces. This vital energy is only an emanation ofthe divine power and manifests the African inner sensibility to be able tofeel animals, stars, the moon, the sun and everythings in us and in theworld fully in mutation. Ningki-Nangka is a compression of time, space andof relativity, between East and West, South and North.It is a metaphor, a star of poetry, of epic song, of art, of music and of light.Un arc en ciel coming from the richness of our soul built on the vitalstrength of our faith. For the name of all oppressed, of all women, for allchildren, for love and peace, from the tam-tam the sun of the new world willrise.

Assane MBaye, Medina, Dakar 1987


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Plexus Voyage in the Medina of Dakar

Sandro Dernini, Langouste MBow, Kre and Assane MBaye, Medina, Dakar 1987


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Plexus Voyage in the Medina of Dakar

Artwork by Kre MBaye

Pathe Diop, Youssouph Traor, Sandro Dernini, Medina-Dakar 1987

1987 first international art slaves market show

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