Occupy Museums(OWS)
collaborations

On September 17th, 2011, we occupied Wall Street because the wealthiest 1% who control banks and big corporations broke trust with the American people. Motivated by a quest for power they robbed the national treasury, bought off our democracy, and made a mockery of the justice system. They left us little choice but to step out in the streets, find each other, and begin imaging and building a new system.We saw a direct connection between the corruption of high finance and the corruption of “high culture.” For example, MoMA shares board members with Sotheby’s auction house, where the value of art is synonymous with speculation. Sotheby’s auction house is now locking out unionized art handlers, refusing to pay them health care during a year of record profits. As art workers, we stand in solidarity with this struggle. Our labor will be truly valued only when we kick the addiction to obscene wealth that characterizes the American and international art world today.So we began to occupy museums in New York City. We danced and chanted at their doors, and held open assemblies on museum steps to free up a space of dialogue and fearlessness for the 99%. More and more people joined us. Museums must be held accountable to the public. They help create our historical narratives and common symbols. They wield enormous power within our culture and over the entire art market. We occupy museums because museums have failed us. Like our government, which no longer represents the people, museums have sold out to the highest bidder.This struggle will not be easy. We are beginning to unmask a cultural system of inequality and exploitationwhich has ancient roots. But we will not wait for future generations to take up this struggle. We are working togetherto replace the exchange of capital with a creative exchange for and by the 99 %. As we seek horizontal spaces for dialogue and collaboration, we begin to fill the hollowness of the capitalist art market with the warmth of meaning and the conviction that art is a necessity, not a luxury. please visit: www.occupymuseums.org  

10/20/2011
Andcompany&Co
collaborations

andcompany&Co. is an international performance-collective, which was founded in 2003 by Alexander Karschnia, Nicola Nord and Sascha Sulimma to work with artistic partners on the interface of theater & theory, politics & practice. Their performances are a humorous game with facts & fiction, which packs bits and pieces of aesthetic & philosophical projects of the 20th and 21st century musically and mixes them into a new political statement.

Their working methods functions accordingly as re-mixes and re-animation, a principle that the &Co.-abbreviation already pays tribute to: &CoLABs is the name of the experimental laboratories and performance-lectures, which precedes or accompanies their theatre-works, which take place on location, like revolutionary timing in 2006 with Noah Fischer in the AT&T building in Lower Manhattan, NY or WARLAB with the visual artist Jan Brokof and the new music ensemble MAE in 2010 in Mülheim, Amsterdam and Berlin.

Their first major stage-work for urbanites – after the big cities was developed and performed on the occasion of the closure of the TAT (Theater am Turm) on May 31st, 2004.

Their work little red (play): ‘herstory’ (2006) received international attention and was invited to numerous festivals like the KUNSTENFESTIVALDESARTS 07 in Brussels or to the Wiener Festwochen in May 2008. In fall 2008 it won the price of the NRW CULTURsecretariat at the festival favoriten – Theaterzwang.

The second part Time Republic was premiered at the festival steirischer herbst in 2007 and toured extensively through Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain to Festival de las Artes de Castilla y Leon, Salamanca (ES).

In August 2008 andcompany&Co. went on a research-tour to Russia:Mausoleum Buffo, the third and last part, had its premiere beginning 2009 at HAU 2, also went on an extended tour through Europe and was shown end of 2009 on the festival IMPULSE, in February 2010 in Alexandria and in April at PAZZ Festival in Oldenburg. It ends the ‘trilogy of reunion with the 20th century’, which began in fall 2006, led into space one year to finally land on the red square (see BUFFO-Blog): “Run, comrade, the old world is after you!”

In Berlin, Budapest and Stuttgart andcompany&Co. developed a game-show out of Heiner Müllers play The Hamletmachine: end of drama, begin of game. In the 2008 edition of Theater Heute andcompany&Co. was mentioned by Christine Wahl as “best upcoming directors” and voted by the readers of the internet-magazine "nachtkritik" on place 2 for the virtual “Theatertreffen”.

For the festival Theaterformen andcompany&Co. worked with the young Schauspiel Hannover and developed a piece with 16 youngsters about boredom, idleness and pastime: City Circus Zero Work is an homage to the Hannover artist Kurt ‘Merz’ Schwitters. The piece was incorporated into the repertoire and was shown in the season 2009/10. With CITY CIRCUS ZERO WORK andcompany&Co. was again voted on place no. 2 of the virtual Theatertreffen of the online-magazine nachtkritik.

End 2009 andcompany&Co. went back on stage themselves: WEST IN PEACE or the last summer of the Indians was premiered on the 17th of decembre 2009 at HAU 3 and is on tour. In Novembre it will also be shown in Tel Aviv.

In summer 2010 andcompany&Co. will produce FATZER BRAZ in Sao Paulo with Brazilian collaborators which will be shown in the fall in Germany. As preparation they did WARLABs in Mülheim, Amsterdam and Berlin.

In the fall 2010 andcompany&Co. will realize a Lenz-project in Berlin:PANDEMONIUM GERMANICUM. Only sometimes it feels unpleasant to them not to able to walk on their heads...

andcompany&Co. are artists-in-residence in Hebbel-im-Ufer (HAU) and thus have chosen Berlin as a focus for their work and life.

 

06/10/2011
Aaron Burr Society
collaborations

We are a joint venture of two New York based citizen-artists: the Aaron Burr Society, founded by Jim Costanzo, and Noah Fischer& Co.  As chance would have it (though one person’s chance is another’s karma) this joint venture initially formed in 2008: the year of change, when then-candidate Barak Obama inspired legions of volunteers to canvas for change; a concept which seemed vanguard at the time. Fischer and Costanzo thus drove to Milford, PA: a perfectly divided American small town where they stood on the street corner yelling and waving signs at strangers.  On this occasion, Fischer was given an uncle Sam outfit which he was not allowed to keep. History rolled on, Obama was elected under economic crisis conditions and proceeded to pick distinguished men to put the economy back on track; men who had first-hand knowledge of the dirty affairs of Wall Street, largely having caused them in the first place. The years passed; 2008, 2009, then 2010 and finally 2011, and from economic stagnation sprang the aforementioned joint venture:  a business whose sole mission is to trade on the absurdity of Market Finance: both ceremonial and playful. more about the Aaron Burr Society  

05/03/2011