SAIC MFA Show: ART OBJECT (Comes with Certificate of Authenticity)
April 30 – May 20, 2011, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Sullivan Galleries
Marcel Broodthaers had his Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles (1968): a museum of his making to counter the art system of the 20th century. It was groundbreaking but quite frankly, analog in comparison to our current state of art and commerce. The system of making an artist and art object from the MFA program to art star, in five steps or less, has gone beyond the level of institutional critique that begins at the museum. Our present art institution runs at hyper-speed, in multiple formats with a viral reach – how to counter the system that has become corporatized and co-opted beyond measure? For Broodthaers, there was still a means of engagement that could be offered up as something counter to the object of his criticism. Today, we are all participants in the system; even those who claim to work from outside the system are actually part of it. All spaces and stands of rebellion have been accounted for. How then to critique?
Enter Jennifer Mills, “graduate art student” at SAIC. Through a conflation of her role as both artist and student, Mills performs an elegant double entendre. Part of an ongoing series of investigations on art, commerce and the artist/patron relationship, Mills performs the student in the SAIC program with the result that her MFA thesis exhibition comments on the art system machinery while also producing art objects for consumption.
Mills’ position in the art machinery is one that wholly embraces her trajectory – she is aware of how every facet of the system in which she is a part of works to validate her as an artist. Mills does not act to counter this system; rather, she works within the system, faithfully performing her role as student and artist. The fact that her art practice is a form of détournement (a means of reclaiming and subverting cultural production) opens up the entire cultural process of art (the education, exhibition, historicization and consumption) as source material.
The traditional practice of détournement would be one where there were clear delineations of what is being reclaimed and subverted. Here however, the game shifts constantly with each new engagement. For Mills, she is honestly an artist, making her way in the world in efforts to garner success. She shares the goals of other artists; she looks to be collected widely, to be represented by a gallerist, and to be reviewed and ultimately historicized for her legacy. In many ways Mills has already accomplished many of these benchmarks for the successful artist; She has sold or gifted over 2000 works, has representation and is being written about and publicized by an art reviewer. The details behind these accomplishments is where the power of her criticism lies: the works sold have all been marketed at the sellable price of under $5, art consultant John Silvis will represent her work at the SAIC MFA Show, while I serve as the art reviewer under the auspices of the Zg Press website. The revelation of these points does not undermine her status as an artist – rather they serve to further validate her role because she has subsumed all of us as her art medium. In my role as an art critic, Silvis’ role as art consultant and all those who have bought or received her work, we are participants in her performance. In effect, our official participation in the art system serves as her method of critique.
Mills’ co-option of this cultural system goes even further in her artwork. Carefully done up in plastic bubble packaging, the art objects are ready for purchase, complete with a shopping bag. The objects in question, flat packaged for easy transport in ready to assemble pieces, is a compendium of the greatest hits in Modern art: Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, Conceptualism and photography. Included in her art products are miniature versions of land art installation works. Yes, thanks to Ms. Mills, you can now own a mini-homage to Christo’s Wrapped works. Mills’ performance is total and priced to sell.
Please note that all art works come with a certificate of authenticity.
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