THE END OF EVERYTHING EXTRACT

I wonder why those who speak of ending art are always artists. And haven't they been trying to end it for decades already? I remember Dada.

A couple of months ago, Anonymous sent me (and I thank her or him) a packet of Art Strike propaganda. 'Demolish Serious Culture' said the flyer. Art Strike Action Committees in London and San Francisco have declared the years 1990 to 1993 to be 'the years without art.' In the spirit of anti-art, I have since lost the information, but I recall it as a protest against you know the Commodity.

Now, for one thing, Tehching Hsieh already did this piece, though only for a year. During that period, he did not create, look at, read of, or talk about art. To strike, paradoxically, is to become an artist. It's a conceptual project.

The Strikers quote Jean Baudrillard's statement: 'Art no longer contests anything, if it ever did.' But does refusing to make art contest anything? If only it did.

C. Carr, Village Voice, New York 14/11/89.

Art Strike Start

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