TEMPORARY ART SOUVENIRS is an artist run shop which was open from the 7th until the 17th of October 2010 during Manifesta 8 Art Biennial in Murcia and Cartagena, Spain.
TEMPORARY ART SOUVENIRS sells specially tailored art souvenirs to as wide an audience as possible, translating high art into low, low art into high, and making it all available for everyone to buy as a souvenir of this special, one-off art event that is Manifesta 8.
TEMPORARY ART SOUVENIRS forms an engaging commentary on the double nature of art as symbolic object and as commodity. The effects, problematics and possibilities of a temporal art event are explored in this unpredictable mobile shop, selling art as souvenirs and souvenirs as art. The shop’s mobility allows it to transverse the boundaries between different social spaces, enabling art and ideas to reach a wide range of audiences.
TEMPORARY ART SOUVENIRS popped up at a different venue each day, including the Manifesta art venues, local squares, shopping malls, migrant neighborhoods and tourist centres.
TEMPORARY ART SOUVENIR is a project realized by Lauren Alexander, Lado Darakhvelidze, Jimini Hignett, Anna Hoetjes, Jeroen Marttin, Eva Olthof, Julio Pastor and Patricia Sousa.
These artists have been part of the 'Platform for Unsolicited Research and Advise', which was a project from the Dutch Art Institute in collaboration with Manifesta, run by Florian Göttke and Yoeri Meessen. manifestaplatform.org
Within the Platform, the artists met the curators of Manifesta 8, several artists, and people involved in previous Manifesta biennials. TEMPORARY ART SOUVENIRS reflects their reactions on biennials, curatorial ideas, the politics and economics around art, and local issues in the region of Murcia.
Manifesta is the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, taking place in different cities and regions every two years. Manifesta purposely strives to keep its distance from what are often seen as the dominant centers of artistic production, instead seeking fresh and fertile terrain for the mapping of a new cultural topography. This includes fostering innovations in curatorial practice, exhibition models and education.
www.manifesta8.es
The Dutch Art Institute (DAI) is the Master’s program in Fine Art of ArtEZ, in The Netherlands. The DAI targets energetic and inquisitive artists with a critical attitude towards traditional art centers and their hierarchies, by providing them with an international platform for exchange and dialogue with peers as well as with established visual artists, theoreticians and practitioners from other disciplines.
www.manifestaplatform.org / www.dutchartinstitute.nl
