Prosu(u)mer
dal 16/9/2015 al 17/10/2015
Segnalato da
Andrea Buttner
Amy Cuddy
Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre
David Raymond Conroy
Hank Herron
Luka Knezevic Strika
Gil Leung
Cayce Pollard
James Richards
Buzz Rickson's
Rockstar Games & Karl Smith
Rundum
Liina Siib
Philippe Thomas
Kohei Yoshiyuki
David Raymond Conroy
16/9/2015
Prosu(u)mer
Eesti Kaasaegse Kunsti Muuseum, Tallinn
The exhibition,place in the context of an art biennial at the Contemporary Art Museum Estonia, traces the mutually parasitic relationships between producers and consumers to examine the intertwined positions of author and user.
curated by David Raymond Conroy
Commissioned by Tallinn Photomonth ’15 for the Contemporary Art Museum Estonia (EKKM), Prosu(u)mer is a show that traces the mutually parasitic relationships between producers and consumers to examine the intertwined positions of author and user.
The term “prosumer” was coined in 1980 by the futurist Alvin Toffler to describe a “pro-active consumer” involved in industrial manufacture of highly customized products. Since then theorists and marketeers have applied the concept in various pursuits from seeking a neat solution to the problem of alienated workforce to segmenting the market even more profitably.
Meanwhile, postmodern ideas about shared authorship and borrowed authenticity remain weak in the face of our longing for the original and the new, relentlessly stimulated by market forces.
Stepping into the role of curator, artist David Raymond Conroy invites us to consider the position of the prosumer in an age where artists operate simultaneously as their own PR reps writing funding proposals, networking and updating their various online profiles, but also as their own patrons working a day-job in order to support their art practice.
Prosu(u)mer takes place in the context of an art biennial at the Contemporary Art Museum Estonia – once a precarious project space that first hijacked the title of a lacking institution and then went on to become an establishment of its own right. The exhibition brings together artworks as well as museological objects and pop culture phenomena, making visible the inter-related chains of aspiration and exploitation, admiration and critique, always tangling creative production and consumption.
Prosu(u)mer is part of Tallinn Photomonth – an artist-led biennial of contemporary art. The artistic leader of Tallinn Photomonth ’15 is Kristel Raesaar.
Other exhibitions in the biennial’s main programme will run throughout the autumn at Tallinn Art Hall, Art Hall Gallery, Tartu Art Museum and Tartu Art House. The 6h Photographic Art Fair Estonia will take place from 2 to 4 October, with a VIP Preview on the evening of 1 October.
Image: Rockstar Games & Karl Smith, Orca, 2015. Inkjet print on Diasec, 60 x 60 cm. Courtesy the artist and Rockstar Games.
Press Contact:
Kristel Raesaar, kristel.raesaar@fotokuu.ee
Opening: Thursday 17.09, 7 – 9 pm
The Museum of Contemporary Art Estonia
Põhja pst 35, Tallinn