Metka Zupanič

The concept of the project was to make a research of the PR summarization of art events (visual and intermedia) in Slovenia, from May to September 2008. This way I got an art “calendar” on great scale which metaphorically shows that art happens all the time and that the art is all around us. On one hand I  pointed out the red line of the exhibition which is the hysterization in various social environments. In this project I was particularly interested in dimension of hysterization & mystification of so called “referentiality” of artist’s CV’s. On the other hand I researched and present some structural characteristics of domestic art scene. With simple questionnaire, added to “PR book”, I show how art critics and editors choose artist and art projects they write about and how they respond to different art topics.

With project I liked to turn viewer’s/visitor’s attention to different strategies of self promotion, used by artist. The fact is that “PR approaches” nowadays play an important role in careers of many artists. That means that in competition environment, seeking of good establishing position, artists need to learn how to promote themselves very well. Especially for those, who struggle to climb on slippery terrain of art market…

Also in public sphere the story is no better; just take in consideration the Slovenian situation, where artists are applying for founds of Ministry of Culture! Here we actually see the rough competitive situation “at work”. Important elements of valuation (or self promotion; depends, how do you look at it) are notorious “references”. And this particular element, materialized in/as a press clipping I “isolated” and explored as a kind of metaphor of actual art scene.

The object was designed and realized as an oversized book of press clipping. This PR overview had additional statistics, presented as graphs.