FTHo

The author’s profile often used to illustrate the book’s frontispiece; it was popular with novels as well as philosophical tomes. The image is familiar also on currency, stamps, coins and notes. The profile is a brand and an artwork, an unlimited multiple; it features on bags, the label for wine bottles, mugs, badges and postcards. This pamphlet records occasions of the bag’s exhibition and its protagonist. The carrying of the profile bag literally orchestrates the roles of artist and collaborator(s). It infiltrates unwitting situations and is an apparently innocent interloper.

The mobile exhibition is predicated on the requirement for a big (enough) profile for the art-world, art-market, art-audience, dealer, auction, and social media attention as a pre-requisite. The responses to these scenarios are serious and humorous. The tableau scenes are familiar and drawn from the ‘international art world’. These are; the arrival, the exhibition, the view, the studio, the pool, the mirror, the art fair, the opening, the connoisseur, the club, the station, the toast, the appreciation, the competition, the consultant and so on. The collaborators within the pamphlet are Roxana Afsha, Stephen Bury, Marguerite Courtel, Elena Crippa, Stéphane Custot, Victor Custot, Ian Davenport, Joschi Herczeg, Doug Kuntz, Barbara Stevini, Donald Smith, Pascale Wakim and Yohko Watanabe. 

Independently, Joschi Herczeg carries the bag on his travels and photographs its situation. Some of these photographs are included in the exhibition that accompanies the pamphlet launch. 

The pamphlet is constructed like those of the original pamphleteers to point out fundamentals. Their targets were generally religious; this mobile exhibition follows artistic strategies to expose the art world such as Andre Cadere taking his barré, a wooden stick comprised of painted circular forms, with him to exhibitions. Cadere’s arrival at Barnett Newman’s one person retrospective at the Grand Palais in 1972 caused annoyance to all; the director threw him out. 

The evening will explore some of these scenarios please join the discussion

Jo Melvin