Failed Attempt At Shameless Self Promotion

The activity of this project involved the participation of both direct and indirect collaborators. Myself and several other Base Kamp artists agreed to perform an activity together, which would find it’s final form through the suggestion of one of our indirect collaborators. These latter unwitting participants were a number of older artists with established carers, who we approached unsolicited.

Our goal was to deal with the historical stereotype of an older, successful artist who helps to put a younger artist on the map by taking them under wing — often through work togetther, and specifically through collaboration as ‘equals’. The various levels of career development along with the monetary value of artworks is a underlying consideration & often a detourant from collaboration between otherwise potentially compatible artists.

Our procedure was simple. We would seek out artists who fit the above description, ask them to participate in a base kamp advertisement by giving their ‘thumbs-up’ with us on film, and wait for one of them to help determine the form al presentation of the project through a suggestion. This would mean that, beyond merely agreeing to follow our instructions, they would in fact have ‘collaborated’ with us — in the sense that they would co-conceptualize part of the project, whether they intended to do so or not.

A possible formal presentation of this activity was (finally) suggested by Sol LeWitt, and we formatted the project accordingly. In response to his reccomendation that we check out Lucy Lippard’s Six Years, our three pages were made to conform stylistically to the range of work represented in the book. We used this documentary-style format to our advantage, re-editing a script that at first resembles the often dry verbage of conceptual art into a narrative of our various exploits - filtered through our own ideosyncracies, and purposeful misinterpretation.