Black Dogs at No Soul For Sale – Not Selling Soul: Call for Proposals

Leeds art collective Black Dogs have been invited to take part in ‘No Soul For Sale’; a three day event gathering together international ‘underground’ and ‘not-for-profit’ groups for a festival of ‘independent’ art as part of Tate Modern’s 10th year anniversary weekend 14th -16th May, 2010 (more info here). Given our unease with the institutional art world and our commitment to experimenting with autonomous, potentially radical forms of artistic production and organisation this invitation caused a certain amount of anxiety within the group. (See 'Log' below for further details)

After much internal bickering we reasoned that we could use the event as an opportunity to question and disseminate notions of ‘independent’, ‘autonomous’ and ‘not-for-profit’ art activity. What meaning do these terms carry in the market-dominated art world and neoliberal capitalist landscape? Is self-organisation seen by most as a stepping-stone; a first rung on the careerist ladder? Is ‘not-for-profit’ a mere descriptor that makes conservative institutions sound more edgy? Can ‘independence’ in the art world refer to an ethical rather than a purely economic horizon? How might we unpick these overused terms and uncover their more radical and antagonistic qualities?

Moreover, how can we as ‘truly’ independent artists retain our integrity in the face of appropriation and co-option by the institutional art world? If we aim to reform the public conception of art and the motives behind making it, it is sometimes useful to hi-jack the art world’s machinery - but how can this be achieved without inadvertently supporting structures and mechanisms that can undermine such an attempt? We would like to call on your help in discussing these issues with a wider audience.

The problem we would like to pose to you is this: 'How to Not Sell Your Soul at No Soul for Sale’

- This conundrum is directed at those artists, collectives, creatives, curators, students, facilitators, art-workers and so forth that consider or describe them selves as ‘not-for-profit’ or ‘independent’.

- The form in which we would like your answers to take is as an A4 ‘How To’ card that outlines instructions and suggests specific actions, activities, performances or discussions that can be enacted over the three days of the No Soul For Sale event.

- The activities can range from the everyday and pragmatic to the far-fetched and ridiculous. Perhaps you think inviting wild animals into the Tate would do the trick, or maybe reading out a manifesto for autonomous art, or handing out directions to ‘non-institutional’ art spaces in the local area? In any case we’d like an easy to follow step-by-step guide, using text, image, diagrams or any form you see fit, that people can both contemplate and act upon.

- These cards will then be enlarged and displayed as part of the Black Dogs pitch in the Turbine Hall and we will select a number of them to perform or enact in an hour-long slot ‘on stage’ that is given to all participating groups in the event.

If you would like to look at previous examples of ‘How To’ cards (not relating to this specific question) then please see documentation of Black Dogs’ DIY: Survival Kit (2008, 2009 and 2010) on this website.

Deadline for submissions is Friday April 30th. They should be emailed as black and white jpeg format at 300dpi to blackdogsleeds@yahoo.com or posted to Andy Abbott, c/o Black Dogs, 44 Whitlam St, Saltaire, West Yorkshire. BD18 4PE.

We look forward to your response. If you have any questions please contact us at the above email address.

--------------- In-group Discussion Log-------------
Black Dogs Invite to NSFS at Tate Modern: The Story So Far (18th March 2010)

1. Invite and anxiety
In February Black Dogs were sent an invite to take part in a three day event gathering together international ‘underground’ and ‘not-for-profit’ groups for a festival of ‘independent’ art as part of Tate Modern's 10th year anniversary. Within Black Dogs this invitation caused a certain amount of discomfort for interlinked reasons

- If we are truly independent (i.e extra institutional) then does uncritically accepting valorisation from Tate Modern undermine our commitment to ‘autonomous’ art production.

- How can we guarantee we will have an affinity with the definitions of ‘not-for-profit’ and ‘independent’ that will become an umbrella for the event. Is it likely that we will be misrepresented? That is, will it be perceived that we understand ‘self-organised’ and ‘not-for-profit’ art production as unproblematically co-existing with, (or worse, a stepping stone towards), the institutional Artworld? In actuality we (Black Dogs) seek to undermine the values that Artworld is founded on (separation of art from life, a professional sphere for the arts, market-led motivation and the neoliberal framing of artistic activity that includes etc). How would we get this across in the tight frame offered by the event and the overpowering ‘narrative’ of simply being in the Tate?

- The above points can be summarised as a fear of recuperation by the forces we see ourselves as experimenting with alternatives to.

2. Solutions and proposal.
a) It was proposed that we do something that highlights our awareness of the above issues. If the Tate want something ‘naughty’ as a way to demonstrate their benevolent understanding, acceptance and even support of such activity (and in so doing neutralising its threatening or antagonistic qualities) then we would accept the challenge at face value. Proposed activity included producing how-to guides for robbing the Tate, facilitating an occupation of the Tate, highlighting the Tate’s colonial past and dodgy sponsorship, undercutting the Tate’s merchandise and so on.

It was brought up however that these solutions might only serve to show how ‘radical’ the Tate is in inviting these activities. Also, and moreover, the invitation had not come from the Tate itself so, even if it did create genuine discord, our reactive proposals might be seen as self-elevating (i.e the Tate might always turn around and say ‘well we never asked you to be here anyway’).

b) Instead perhaps we’d be better stimulating some kind of dialogue or trying to disseminate the ‘radical’ version of ‘not-for-profit’ and ‘DIY’ we subscribe to and practice. Could we create a publication, information point, and space for debate about what genuinely independent and autonomous artistic production is and help ‘educate’ the Tate’s visitors in this?

Another layer would be that we could get in touch with all the other organisations and artist groups who had been invited to take part to ask them similar questions. Had they experienced similar pangs of guilt by accepting the invitation? Did they think it undermined any of their values but was impossible to turn down for the sake of ‘visibility’ (in its disruptive sense)? Are there things left unsaid in their presentation of themselves at the event that we (Black Dogs) could provide a vent for? This was the proposal we put forward to the curators of the event (see ‘Proposal’) with the knowledge that it provided a basic frame that we could then fill in or change if needed.

3. Working up and having fun.
Following the submission of the proposal we met again in Leeds to discuss the proposal. It was brought up that actually what we had submitted could potentially be really dry and boring and raised some issues:

- How many ‘discourse-focused’ installations or interventions have we seen that are essentially flat and achieve very little. Are passing visitors at the Tate likely to even notice what we are doing (given the 7 – 30 second attention span of such art lovers and the nature of the event itself which has more than a whiff of a competition for attention)?

- Is it likely that we’ll get any (substantial) response from the other invitees to the event? Are we presuming a collectively felt ‘guilt’ that in actuality for most of the invitees will not have even registered? Will it just look like we are playing a ‘holier than thou card’ and if so, are there more effective ways of pointing this out than gently asking for an opinion?

- More importantly would we enjoy doing it? Sitting around for three days having potentially unfruitful conversations sounds a bit too much like work.

4. DIY Survival Kit
Plan B, then, would be to somehow stimulate and disseminate the same info or discussion (‘What is a truly autonomous, independent or radical mode of art production and organisation and why/how must it necessarily undermine the principles of the Artworld?’) in a more fun and fruitful way.

We returned to the DIY Survival Kit as a mode of gathering info, communication, dissemination and provoking activity (see here). Would it be possible to display and enact the DIY Survival Kit as an act of resistance to the overpowering narrative of the Tate (in that it demonstrates that we will not let our activity be wholly dictated by the institutional context and fall into the trap of Tate-valorising critique) whilst ensuring it encompasses some critical aspect that raises awareness of the above issues.

5. Current state and questions
What we have currently on the table, then, is to use the No Soul For Sale event as an opportunity to bring a ‘version’ of the DIY Survival Kit based on the notion ‘How To Survive, DIY’. That is, as well as presenting the kit as an illustration/performing of our practice and ethos (one of free sharing of information, self-determination and self-organisation, a rejection of capitalist and careerist values and so on) it could be used as a method to address the more specific question ‘How does one retain autonomy in the face of recuperation?’ or less-dryly ‘How to Not Sell Your Soul at No Soul for Sale.’

This would be an interesting question to form the basis of cards that are filled in by participants; both visitors to the Tate and other NSFS invitees, and displayed at the event. It would also form the basis of the cards that we ‘perform’ (as we did with the ‘DIY Survival Kit: Live) when given our hour ‘onstage’ at the event. This opens up the possibility of us doing some of the actions that we originally thought of without them becoming the entirety of our contribution to the event.

Last, perhaps this question (and the invitation to provide a response in card-form) will allow us to start a dialogue with more artists and artists groups than just those that have been invited as participants in NSFS. Perhaps we could publicise the question more widely (through personal connections, mailing lists, Critical Network, Art Monthly etc) as a way to stimulate the discourse on ‘truly independent’ artistic production outside of the frame of this event; an open call for A4 cards relating to ‘resisting appropriation by the Artworld whilst being outward facing’?