2004–2006Conceptual Art / Installation
Artmann
Gallery, production studio, trend operation. Concepts in Belgium, execution in Dafen. Ghent, 2004–2006.
"As in fashion, collectors follow trends in the art world. So why not create our own art collections?"
Artmann operated simultaneously as a gallery, a trend-watching operation, and a production studio. Concepts were developed in Belgium. Physical execution was contracted to painters in Dafen Village, Shenzhen — the same industrial production site that manufactures the majority of the world's commercial oil painting reproductions. The finished works were returned to Belgium and presented under the Artmann label.
The production model inverted the standard art world chain. Normally: artist makes work, gallery represents it, collector acquires it. Here: the gallery conceived the work, an external production system executed it, and the question of where the art resided — in the concept, the execution, the label, or the transaction — was left structurally unresolved.
In 2006, Luc De Vos, frontman of Belgian band Gorky, produced a painting series within the Artmann system. The collaboration was not cross-disciplinary decoration. It was a test of the system's logic: if Artmann's premise is that the gallery is the author and production is outsourced, what happens when a musician — operating entirely outside the visual art infrastructure — enters the production chain? The works were exhibited at Artmann Gallery, Ghent.
The project ran from 2004 to 2006 and closed. Its direct successor was the Dafen documentary investigation in 2008 — a return to examine the production site Artmann had used from the outside. Together the two projects bracket the same question from opposite directions: Artmann used Dafen without examining it; the documentary examined it without using it.
Gallery, production studio, trend operation. Ghent, 2004–2006.
Artmann operated simultaneously as a gallery, a trend-watching operation, and a production studio. Concepts were developed in Belgium. Physical execution was contracted to painters in Dafen Village, Shenzhen — the same industrial production site that manufactures the majority of the world's commercial oil painting reproductions. The finished works were returned to Belgium and presented under the Artmann label.
The production model inverted the standard art world chain. Normally: artist makes work, gallery represents it, collector acquires it. Here: the gallery conceived the work, an external production system executed it, and the question of where the art resided — in the concept, the execution, the label, or the transaction — was left structurally unresolved.
In 2006, Luc De Vos, frontman of Belgian band Gorky, produced a painting series within the Artmann system. The collaboration was not cross-disciplinary decoration. It was a test of the system's logic: if Artmann's premise is that the gallery is the author and production is outsourced, what happens when a musician — operating entirely outside the visual art infrastructure — enters the production chain? The works were exhibited at Artmann Gallery, Ghent.
The project ran from 2004 to 2006 and closed. Its direct successor was the Dafen documentary investigation in 2008 — a return to examine the production site Artmann had used from the outside. Together the two projects bracket the same question from opposite directions: Artmann used Dafen without examining it; the documentary examined it without using it.
Gallery, production studio, trend operation. Ghent, 2004–2006.