Art -
accessible to 100% of people
ART DISPERSAL January 17, 2014 5-8pm
Cedarwood Waldorf School 3030 SW 2nd
Ave Portland, OR 97201
Can you imagine going to visit someone and finding their home
full of artwork? Can you imagine needing to stop and ask directions on your way
there and finding that person’s home full of artwork? Can you imagine appearing
in court to pay your parking ticket and finding the courtroom walls covered
with paintings that were somehow consistent with your being in a
courtroom? Can you imagine a society where many, many people are working
artistically and everywhere is something that has been created by someone? Can
you imagine a society where these people also have time and materials and
enough to eat?
Free Columbia is an investigation of art in relation
to the spiritual aspects of the human being and the world. As a new
experiment in our ongoing attempts to de-commodify art, Free Columbia is
planning an art dispersal event in Portland. http://www.freecolumbia.org/art-dispersal.php
On Friday January 17 we will open
the event with a reception and presentation on Free Culture by Laura Summer,
the co founder of Free Columbia.
As a society we have placed original visual art outside of
the financial means of the majority of people. At the same time we have
impoverished most of our artists. We need to turn this situation around.
At the art dispersal event, which will occur on January 17-
at the Cedarwood Waldorf School we will present two different, and not
necessarily connected, actions.
- We will make approximately 30 pieces of visual art by New York artist Laura Summer available for dispersal to people who would like to live with them for an unspecified amount of time. This means that the recipients will take the work home and will not need to return it. If the time comes when they no longer want to keep the artwork they can give it to someone else who does want it or they can contact the artist to return it.
- We will accept donations to support the work of both the Cedarwood Waldorf School and Free Columbia.
How are these actions connected? Only in terms of
visibility, time and space. That is, the event will make people aware of the
availability of the artwork and of the possibility of contributing to support
the freeing of culture. Those who take paintings will be encouraged to make a
financial contribution but it will be clear that this is not connected to a
value assigned to the art work, rather it is an opportunity to support creative
activity which the person obviously values since they are taking the work home.
Also people are free to contribute to Cedarwood and Free Columbia and need not
take any artwork home. We don’t know what will happen but we will know more
after we try it.
Perhaps you have wanted to live with an original painting,
perhaps you have wanted to contribute to free culture but how to do this was
unclear, perhaps you are simply curious about what will happen… for whatever reason, please
participate in the art dispersal event.
Let us see what happens when we ask people to support the
conditions for creativity instead of purchasing artwork.
6 minute video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoN4uMu2t4k
Comments from previous art
dispersals in New York:
Thanks a million. I love looking at the piece every day.
Beginning – not knowing what was happening, middle – it’s
working!!! End – a totally satisfying experience, new, social, surprising…making
people so happy.
This is amazing! We love being able to own original art. Thank
you!
It sort of felt like adopting a baby. A beautiful quiet well
behaved baby. It was as if everyone had a painting that was meant for them in
the room and they had to find theirs.
Looking
at your work makes me think that this kind of activity makes a more lasting
impression by being in the house than not because it does form part of our
daily life. It weaves itself into our daily imagination and emotions without
being prompted by external considerations. It forms part of our daily eyes.
http://www.freecolumbia.org/
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