Jeremy Deller proposed a structure similar to Stonehenge, or simply menhir-like, to mark the entrances and exits of the Olympic Park, which was to host stadiums and other facilities in London in 2012. The deliberate ambiguity lay in creating a structure—although contemporary—that appeared to pre-exist its context and to foreshadow a possible fate of ruin for all the structures within this high-tech area. At the same time, it referred to the values associated with Stonehenge, an icon of British identity whose meaning remains largely unknown.
Read more.]]> http://hdl.handle.net/1889/2103]]> Jeremy Deller, invited to the Carnegie International in 2004, presented this project—which can be linked to a broader series of research and reflections on the contemporary war in Iraq—with the intention of displaying one of his large banners on the museum’s façade, recalling the one used as a backdrop by President George W. Bush during a speech. This banner bore the words “Mission Accomplished.”

In the image, beside the banner, there are two Post-it notes referring, respectively, to the display—also on the façade—of a photograph (taken from existing documentation) showing Donald Rumsfeld, then President Reagan’s special envoy to the Middle East, meeting Saddam Hussein in 1983; and to an ambiguous flyer posted on the doors of some houses in Florida during the 2000 presidential election, which refers to what the artist considers a Republican Party strategy to discourage opposing voters. The flyer falsely stated that, in order to vote, all fines had to be paid, and also indicated an incorrect election date.

As reported by the artist himself, the theme of the work was “just too raw at the time.” Instead, for the exhibition Breaking News (Dedicated to Peter Watkins), he created a site-specific work for the miniature rooms at the Carnegie Museum of Art, where he overlapped models and reconstructions of ancient battles with architectural elements, period furnishings, and a television transmitting images.

Read more.]]> http://hdl.handle.net/1889/2097]]> The possible commissioners and the reasons why the project remained unrealized haven’t been specified by the artist.
Read more.]]> http://hdl.handle.net/1889/2332]]> official page. Erwin Wurm declared that the project has been officially refused for formal reasons.
Read more.]]> http://hdl.handle.net/1889/2331]]> The project consisted of inviting an icon of popular culture – such as Iggy Pop – to pose, without revealing his identity to the students, as a model for a drawing class. The results of these sessions would then be donated and preserved at the Smithsonian Institution. The artist’s research here focuses on the importance of preserving the social content and values related to pop music and its enjoyment, placing them in a broader cultural context, and, in particular, on the role that certain bands and musicians play for specific communities of fans or, as in this case, for a heterogeneous and often unaware public.
The document is a drawing by Sarah Tynan and serves as an example of what could have been the outcome of the class’s work.
The project was organized by the Brooklyn Museum in 2016.
Read more.]]> http://hdl.handle.net/1889/2099]]> Read more.]]> http://hdl.handle.net/1889/2330]]> Scott King developed this project as CRASH!, together with historian and writer Matthew Worley, for the Serpentine Map Marathon event.
A Better Britain is a series of 12 projects, published inside what appeared to be the programme for the Map Marathon, along with information about the event. Each project features an image—designed by Scott King with a xerox, collage-like aesthetic—and a text written by Matthew Worley presenting the idea. Each proposal addresses a specific aspect of contemporary Britain, adopting a utopian/dystopian and often satirical perspective.
MoRE also conducted an interview with the authors about the projects, which was published on the museum’s website.
Read more.]]> http://hdl.handle.net/1889/2410]]> Big Suit Departing was conceived for Berlin Schönefeld Airport. The project consisted of a giant figure—10 × 3.5 m—suspended inside the airport hall at a 50% tilt.

The “dummy” has neither head nor limbs and is completely hollow, allowing passengers to see through it. The work is highly realistic, with details such as buttons, eyelets, and fabric meticulously rendered.

This characteristic is typical of Erwin Wurm’s work, which partially distorts the reality we live in.

This type of “monument” is not intended to celebrate the common man; rather, as in all of Wurm’s work, it seeks to glorify an exorcism of everyday life—a celebration of a different reality, of visionary and distorted perceptions.

Read more.]]> http://hdl.handle.net/1889/2327]]> This project represents, first and foremost, a reflection on the feasibility of art projects and on the relationship between the artist and the commissioning body within the contemporary art system. Through the irony and poetic approach that would characterize his later projects, the artist ultimately questions broader dynamics and meanings.
In this work, conceived when Jonathan Monk was still a student at the Glasgow School of Art, the artist presents a series of proposals for projects that are, by their very nature, impossible to realize — crazy, as he himself describes them. Closely connected to the designation of Glasgow as European Capital of Culture in 1990, Small Proposals Book is a handmade book containing the presentation of six public art interventions for the Scottish city. These are bound together with a (fake) response letter for each proposal from the official to whom the artist would supposedly have submitted the project, the Visual Arts Officer Tessa Jackson. Both the images and the response letters were, of course, produced by the artist himself.
The visual part, through the reuse of everyday images that are exaggerated and stereotypical, aims to emphasize the deep irony and the implicit critique of the dynamics associated with this type of intervention. Jonathan Monk pretends to propose bringing the pyramids to Glasgow Green, moving the Golden Gate Bridge over the River Clyde (although the image used was actually that of the Humber Bridge, which is why the proposal is rejected in the fictional response letter), restoring driving orientation to continental standards, transplanting one of the giant sequoias from Redwood National and State Parks, moving Stonehenge to redevelop the fountain in Kelvingrove Park, and finally relocating Disneyland for a year to the parking lot of the St. Enoch Centre.
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]]> http://hdl.handle.net/1889/1757]]> Jeremy Deller with these two projects, both developed in 2008 for the public art project connected to the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, proposes an anti-monumental and deeply political vision, working – in his own words – more from the perspective of a citizen than from that of an artist, and remaining closely connected to the contemporary situation of a country, then involved in the Iraq War.

The first proposal is a life-size statue of David Kelly, the British scientist whose death, officially ruled a suicide, followed statements he had made to the media expressing doubts about the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the subsequent parliamentary inquiry.

The second proposal, entitled The Spoils of War, consists of exhibiting the wreckage of a car destroyed by a bomb in Iraq, thus bringing a trace of the war to what has for centuries been the heart of the British Empire and is still universally recognized as a place of strong monumental character.