DAMP + ACW: Together Again

Opening Reception and Live Performance:
Saturday Night Dec 4th, 6:00 - 10:00 pm

free beer & music+ special pre-opening event “Air Guitar Competition”
Thursday Night Dec 2nd, 6:00 - 10:00 pm (info below)

BASEKAMP
723 Chestnut Street 2nd floor
Philadelphia, PA united states

Exhibition dates: Dec 4th 2004 – Jan 15 2005

Together Again is an exhibition by two related collaborative groups. The DAMP collective from Melbourne, and Torino-based collaborative art group A Constructed World have worked together and independently to create artworks that explore the relationship between art and audience through video, photography, painting, publishing and live events.

images: detail of Suddenly…A Face Melting Solo, interpolated cartoons and video by DAMP with various artists, 2004; and Explaining Contemporary Art To Live Eels, by A Constructed World, 2004.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
DAMP
The collaborative art group, DAMP, have worked together in various guises since 1995. Over these ten years the group has comprised of over 69 artists. Through performances, actions, video and object making they have created artworks that explore the complicated relationships between art and audiences. The work of DAMP could be described as funny social research experiments gone terribly wrong that once completed, are usually documented for future audiences to contemplate and interpret.
More DAMP info: more DAMP info

A Constructed World
Geoff Lowe and Jacqueline Riva began working collaboratively as A Constructed World in 1993 when they founded Artfan magazine. Since then they have worked with video, photography, painting, publishing and events. Their projects seek to blur thresholds between sending and receiving and they have facilitated many collaborative workshops including people from varying backgrounds and practices, in New York, London, Melbourne, and Torino, working with groups such as Wild Kingdom, Art Crew, Rosebud, KinK, Life with Us, Crack of Noon and have worked in collaboration with artist group DAMP.
More ACW info: more ACW info

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Explaining Contemporary Art to Live Eels
A Constructed World
In 1965 Joseph Beuys made the work How To Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, in which he walked around a gallery with his face smeared with honey and covered in gold leaf, carrying a dead hare to whom he talked, explaining the pictures before them. The audience for this performance was kept outside, only able to see the goings on from behind a clear screen. There are various versions of exactly what he did but it was concerned with explaining what was unknowable. In 2004, in an expanded field, A Constructed World will offer a performance and video work called explaining contemporary art to live eels. The live eels swim around a group show before being returned to the pond, the river, the ocean and ultimately the bottom of the Sargasso sea. This work is also about explaining what we don’t-know, yet we see what is outside our possession and not-known as a resource to be shared. The exhibition made by artists from More Fools in Town will be placed in an aquatic environment and the live audience of eels and humans will be free to move around and look at the exhibition and each other looking. There is so little that is documented and understood about eels, they cross roads at night (sleep in haystacks) to get back to the river then the ocean then their breeding ground where they basically procreate to death at the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean. The tiny new spawn then travel thousands of kilometers to the habitats where we experience them. No eel has ever been born in captivity. They can live for months in low vibe in a freezer, they can be extremely hardy but are now declining in numbers. explaining contemporary art to live eels will be presented on three continents by A Constructed World in 2004-2005 and this will be presented at Basekamp in Philadelphia in a group show with Melbourne group/collective DAMP. This work will also be accompanied by the ACW video work, Big Dirty Love, and made in collaboration with sound artist Steve Piccolo.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Suddenly… a face melting solo
DAMP
Over the preceding year the collaborative group DAMP from Melbourne invited friends, colleagues and other groups from around the world to shoot short 30 second videos. Each scene was to contain an object entering the frame and a different object exiting. Damp then filmed, connecting scenarios using these objects as links. What results is a chain reaction of sorts, which inextricably takes the members of the group, through a mega-narrative loop via various communities, times, continents and random humorous events. The aim was to track the small turns of fate that connects and separates each of us to one another. This video loop will be accompanied by a series of over 120 drawings which illustrate this game of six degrees of separation to an extreme conclusion and by an installation and other objects which further utilize these seemingly ‘dead’ endings as means for new beginnings.

Air Guitar Competition
Thursday Night Dec 2nd, 6:00 - 10:00 pm
In great rock tradition DAMP is keen to hold an air guitar competition as a way of meeting people and having a good time. Participants are invited free of charge to cut out and paint their own guitars and perform their favorite songs in front of large ‘Damplifier’ paintings. The Air Guitar workshop is open to all and will take place at BASEKAMP during the week leading up to the exhibition opening. To register or for more information, please email or call BASEKAMP (contact info below).