Pizza Surprise is a curated exhibition of 10 new works that take art out of the gallery and directly to the audience, via pizza-style home delivery (in Perth) or by overnight delivery (elsewhere in Australia). Following 4 weeks of home delivery, the Pizza works will be shown en masse in centrally located commercial premises. DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: MAY 4 2001
NOTIFICATION: MAY 18 2001
WORKS TO BE COMPLETED BY: AUGUST 13 2001
10 artists will be selected to design and construct work to fit inside standard, family-size pizza boxes. This could be work in any medium: 2D or 3D, video or CDROM, sound works etc.
Pizza Surprise! will be promoted by direct mail and on the web, with a menu of work imitating existing pizza offers. A catalogue/cookbook will also be on sale.
Your proposal will comprise:
a 1-2 page description of the work you intend to produce
a one page summary CV
5-10 slides of past work (or other support material, as appropriate.)
Please enclose a stamped, SAE for the return of your support material.
We expect that Pizza Surprise! will offer customers and artists an opportunity to engage with some of the following ideas:
exhibition alternatives to the art gallery
the commercial necessity for career artists to produce commodity based art
'name' branding of artists
the ideological implications of pricing structures in the arts
consumerism and disposability in contemporary society
the home as a showcase for the 'self'
See the attached exhibition summary for more information.
Our selection criteria include:
that the work is able to be reproduced in editions of 25 (TBC) and be sturdy enough to withstand the rigours of home delivery
engagement with the novelty of the pizza box as an exhibition space as well as the themes that underpin the project
a sense of humour is welcome
Artists will be paid a fee to produce 25 (TBC) editions of the work and receive a contribution toward production costs. At this stage, money from the sale of the works will be used to offset the costs of exhibition and delivery.
We welcome franchise inquiries.
Exhibition Summary
Pizza Surprise! uses the unique approach of taking art directly to an audience using the mechanisms of home delivered pizza.
Each work will be contained within in a standard, family-size pizza box. The box itself becomes a symbolic inversion of the white cube of the gallery. In Pizza Surprise!, the culturally loaded white walls of the conventional art space become small, portable, disposable.
Pizza Surprise! works are ironic purchases and subvert the usual experience of the art consumer. The works are sold using the artist's name as a generic moniker or flag, much like 'The Works' or 'Aussie'. By making reference to these familiar categories of pizza, the menu offered by Pizza Surprise! undermines the consumer's expectation of originality, as well as the way art and artists are made use of in the marketplace.
Pizza Surprise! consumers intentionally or inadvertently curate an experience for themselves. The critical intent of each work assumes an importance amidst the new owner's other possessions. In a sense, each home is already an exhibition space in which the owner has assembled projections of personality, individuality and tribal allegiance, be it to Country Road, Target Homeware or Versace.
Each Pizza artwork is priced the same as any other. The price has a strictly nominal value (the price of a pizza), not reflecting the retail value of these highly desirable objects. By determining the amount the market can pay for an object at an absurdly arbitrary figure, Pizza Surprise! offers a comment on the implications of pricing structures of art. Without rarity, reputation, status, fame, market recognition, critical/cultural favour, what is an artwork worth?
This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Inquiries to:
Katie Major
08 9228 0090/0416 297 986
katiemajor@excite.com
Michelle Glaser
08 9244 9698/0412 886 904
glaser@wantree.com.au
postal address:
PO Box 215
Leederville WA 6903
Australia
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