Black Rock Arts Foundation 2008 Grants Applicant Information
Name: Justin Hoover, Deer Fang, Jon Phillips, Sarah Wylie Ammerman,
Title of Project: Canto Core Culture
Organization: Fabricatorz, Garage Biennale
Mailing Address: 2830 Pacific Ave.
City, State, Zip: San Francisco, CA 94115
Daytime Phone: (415) 425-1647
Email Address: Jhoover.charles@gmail.com
Website: www.garagebiennale.com, http://fabricatorz.com, www.queensnailsannex.com
Are you submitting supplemental materials? No
Have you previously applied for a Black Rock Arts Grants? No
Project Information
1. Project Title. Canto Core Culture
2. Project Goals. Briefly, state the goals of your art project. What is the fundamental purpose of your project? [Response limited to 1500 words]
1. The primary goal of this project is to investigate key trends in the evolution of global culture through the lens of piracy in fashion. Specifically, this act of piracy is expressed in the prevalent copying and mixing of global styles in local Guangzhou, Canton culture. Canto Core Culture extends the dialogue and aesthetics of remaking and reinterpreting identity through artistic collaborations, public interventions, gallery exhibitions and other public events in San Francisco and Guangzhou, China.
2. The next goal is to develop a growing network of Chinese and U.S. contemporary experimental artists concerned with creating art in alternative contexts. We will create a platform for both Chinese and U.S. artists, and the public to interact through a collaborative project that will be exhibited in both countries.
3. Lastly, through building dialog and coordinating international collaborative actions, we will highlight how objects born out of local, creative cultures transfer identity into the products of the global environment and the culture of the masses, and vice versa. This project seeks to analyze the ways in which each mode of production is remaking/ reinterpreting, or counterfeiting one another in the age of information.
3. Project Rationale. Please provide a narrative that describes why your proposal for a public artwork will matter, how it will serve your community and others, and how your art project furthers the mission of the Black Rock Arts Foundation. If relevant, also discuss briefly the role of partners or volunteers.
[Response limited to 1000 words]
The arts are known to be a catalyst for empowerment and education. When one encounters art in the public sphere, in a non-art context, they are more prone to question its meaning, its significance, and their own relation to objects and activities in their daily lives. Raising these questions in the minds of the public has the power to promote creative thinking, help people break out of their personal conventions and challenge them to expand and develop their lives. This project opens dialogue between people in San Francisco and Guangzhou and asks us to think beyond national identities. In a world that has been plagued with the artifice of nationalism, projects like ours, that encourage international collaboration, promise a new conception of cultural identity and self-expression in the world system.
As China becomes increasingly present in the international arts community, as well as potentially the next world superpower, the type of cultural bridge we propose is a requirement for developing vibrant international dialogue. Public artwork and cultural exchange projects Guangzhou (also called Canton) is the capital of fashion import-export in the Pearl River Delta of Southern China. Its clothing industry supplies manufactured clothes to China and many part of the world, and acts as a hub for the manufacturing of international styles. Many of the international fashion brands set up production sites in Guangzhou and its surrounding areas. If you walk into one of the clothes whole sale market in Guangzhou, one is immediately bombarded by the amount of sales activities in these crowded area, as well as by the varieties of languages and regional dialects being spoken, and lastly and most importantly, the amount of knockoff clothing brands being redesigned in front of your eyes. If you walk on the street in Guangzhou, you will witness the most interesting clothing styles among all ages and classes. You may recognize the styles from contemporary fashion magazines, and yet they are not exactly like these; or you might notice the drastic combination of different obscure styles. The low cost of “high fashion” in Guangzhou also enables people to outfit themselves with the most trendy or the wildest styles they want, regardless of class or social distinction.
The significance of highlighting the context surrounding Guangzhou fashion is important to understanding how local fashion emerges in era of post-globalization. Furthermore, this study recognizes the role of piracy in fashion, music, movies and art, has become a cultural phenomenon embodied in the aesthetic style of appropriation and reinterpretation. Artists such as Danger Mouse’s Grey Album, DJ Spooky’s Re-Birth of a Nation, and the paintings of renowned artist Elaine Sturtevant likewise embody this sentiment and tradition.
American fashion style especially hip-hop style clothing is some of the most popular styles in Guangzhou. Initiating such a dialogue in San Francisco and Guangzhou in the context of art, will provide a reflexive perspective for the public and art community in both locations. Such a project is intended to spark dialogue about art and the public sphere, making one question their role in society, and to develop new artistic communities in the global urban landscape.
This project will specifically serve the communities of San Francisco and Guangzhou by reinserting the agency of individuals into an industry of giants. Through the Fabricatorz organization, we will make an open call to individuals in the local populations to become involved in the design, construction, and exhibition of this clothing line. This will serve both populations by redefining notions of identity, and highlighting the viability of the concepts of the counterfeit, the knockoff, making people question the role the genuine, and the exclusive.
Another community this will serve is the larger international conceptual and experimental arts community of the Bay Area and Guangzhou. By establishing this cultural bridge it will open doors for more artists to show work in both places, helping these artists to further develop their practice outside the bubble of San Francisco. By enabling artist from both cities to exhibit in the other city, during the exhibition on Remaking Culture, we will be building lasting connections between peoples, communities and artistic practices. In the long run, we hope to develop this into a sustainable practice of international dialogue, and interchange.
Specifically, Canto Core Culture will further the mission of the Black Rock Art Foundation by bolstering the values of temporality, inclusivity, experimentation, connectedness, and intercultural dialogue. The project will consist of a series of guerilla style fashion shows and public happenings, designed by a veteran team of artist/curators from San Francisco and Guangzhou, China. These happenings interject the beautiful, the absurd, the surreal, and the playful, into common environments such as corporate office buildings, government centers, the streets, and in conventional art galleries, in order to prompt new models of social interaction. Due to the performative nature of these interventions, they support the values of temporal and ephemeral art. Additionally, they highlight the importance of developing community dialogue by requiring the public's participation through their interaction with the performers.
4. Project Description. Please describe your art project. How will it manifest itself physically?
[Response limited to 1500 words]
The project will consist of four sections all to occur both in Guangzhou, China and San Francisco:
1) A Clothing Remix/Remake project
2) Guerilla Fashion Show
3) Gallery Exhibitions.
4) Publication of a book/catalogue, and a magazine
Clothing Remix/Remake
In 2007 after a trip to Guangzhou, Fabricatorz (Deer Fang and Jon Phillips) began creating new clothes from used clothes found in San Francisco. Some of the clothes can be found here: http://mediaexperiment.org/wiki/CBlends. For the new project, we will extend the making of clothes in Guangzhou, and invite artists and designers to participate in a counterfeit clothing workshop to create new works using existing fashions. The goal of the production is to explore the possibilities of mixing forms, material, styles and even brands logos, styles and identities.
Guerilla Fashion Shows
A series of guerilla style fashion shows will take place in Guangzhou to release the produced clothing. We will invite models and non-models to demonstrate the new counterfeit clothing in public spaces. These public interventions will take the form of fashion shows on temporary runways in mundane environments such as office buildings, shopping malls, government buildings, and in the street. These shows will consist of creating temporary runways can take the form of a red carpet, a long line of orange work cones, astro-turf or sod, or any other sculpturally defined space. For example, if a material, such as salt is readily available, it can be formed into a long flat strip on which to walk as a way of defining a section of space.
Gallery Exhibitions
Fabricatorz and the participating artists will invite additional artists and curators to organize an art show on the subject of Remaking Culture and will exhibit this idea of identity reinterpretation in temporary gallery space in Guangzhou. The opening of the show will also coincide with the release of the book/catalogue, the magazine and the fashion product line. Furthermore, after Guangzhou, the exhibition travels to San Francisco for exhibition in Queens Nail Annex, The Garage, or another similar independent art gallery.
Publications: Book/Catalogue, and Magazine
A team of two to three photographers will document Canto fashion on the street. Record styles and take portraits of people who have interesting fashion. After collecting a good amount of material, these images are to be published in a book with writing by internationally acclaimed artists and writers. Additionally, this publication will take the format of a magazine (or newspaper) to be distributed in the street. This magazine will take the form of a high-end fashion magazine and be a “knock off” of media identity.
5) Project Interactivity. In what way will your proposed art project be interactive? Consider the people, the physical environment, and the community as a whole.
There are three main elements to the interactivity component of this proposal:
1) Clothing Banks
2) Fashion Shows/Events - streets
3) Gallery Events/Talks
This project seeks to involve both local populations in Guangzhou and San Francisco through clothing banks, fashion shows/public interventions, and through gallery events and talk. The publics in San Francisco and in Guangzhou are encouraged to contribute to the clothing bank and help the Fabricatorz production team remix local fashion. Then the public is invited to be part of the fashion shows by exhibiting their clothes and becoming a fashion model of their own designs. These volunteers will be equipped with one of the counterfeit outfits and become part of the guerilla fashion team. Once these models are inserted into the public, the public will be encouraged to participate by putting on clothes themselves, mixing with their current clothes, or putting on a unique outfit provided by the project staff.
The public at large will be invited to submit work to the gallery exhibitions. These submissions will be chosen by the project staff and exhibited jointly in China and San Francisco. The non-artist public is likewise invited to take part in the gallery events/talks. Everyone is invited to come and participate in the discussions.
6. Collaboration. Define or describe your community. Who will help you create your art project? Is the project collaborative? In what ways? [Response limited to 1000 words]
The partnering institutions will absolutely include, but are not limited to, The Garage Biennale and Fabricatorz. Other institutions with whom we are in dialogue include Queen’s Nail Annex, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and OffSpace Gallery. The overall project also dovetails with similar artworks and projects such as Pauline Yao’s Fake exhibition at Universal Studios, Beijing 2007, and Stephanie Syjuco's work and vision behind her project, Counterfeit Crochet (http://www.counterfeitcrochet.org). In creating Canto Core Culture, The Garage Biennale along with the Fabricatorz will address the political economics and implications of 'otherness' as well through alternative fashion and partnership with international artists and designers.
The target community for the fashion shows includes the public in many different location including by not limited to places of commerce such as malls, and shopping centers, government buildings, and financial centers. The target community for the gallery book/catalogue and magazine includes the people of both San Francisco, and Guangzhou, specifically the people who can be found walking the street and frequenting public places. They will range from young to old, rich and poor. Lastly, the target community for the exhibition includes the local art, and the international art communities.
7. Community Interaction. In what ways will your project encourage community outreach? How will your project encourage participating communities to interact with other communities? How will your audience benefit from the experience of your work?
[Response limited to 1000 words]
One of the ways in which the Canto Core Culture/Fabricatorz collective will encourage community outreach is by both attendance and participation in the guerilla fashion shows themselves, and the gallery exhibitions, which will exhibit documentation from these shows. Such community-based interaction will enable communities to interact with each other through dialogue and a commonality in the overall experience. The performative nature of the work is meant to inspire immediate reaction and action to the actual message being conveyed.
8. Funding. How much funding are you requesting for the project described in this application? (Note: A complete budget must also be submitted as a part of your application).
[Response limited to 1000 words]
We are requesting $8,000 to complete this project.
Please see the budget worksheet below (p. 11) to view the proposed breakdown of expenses and income.
9. Accomplishments. Please list your relevant accomplishments. You may include past projects, your experience with similar projects not your own, corresponding websites or other resources.
[Response limited to 1000 words]
Justin Hoover – Artist, Curator, International Management specialist
Professional Experience
• Associate 1990 Institute, a Chinese/U.S. public policy think tank. Developing a joint project between the 1990 Institute and the China National Children’s Center establishing a mural painting center for the world’s youth in Beijing, China, 2008.
• Development Intern, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2007.
• Program Administrator, ArtSeed, San Francisco local arts education organization 2004-7.
Education
• Masters Degree of Public Administration of International Management, Monterey Institute of International Studies, 2007
• Masters Degree of Fine Art, San Francisco Art Institute, candidate 2009
• Creative Director and Founder of The Garage Biennale (www.garagebiennale.com)
Distinctions
• Awarded Ministry of Education of Taiwan (R.O.C.) travel and study grant, 2007
• Awarded San Francisco Art Institute Scholarship Grant, 2008
Recent Media/Press
• Stretcher Magazine: Review of 100 Performance for the Hole, (soon to be published), 2008
• 7x7 Magazine: “At Home With Art”, 2007
About my projects
The Garage Biennale has been my single greatest artistic accomplishment to date. The Garage is an artist-fueled space, focusing on expanding ongoing dialog and understanding between artists, curators, and the public. It is an ongoing community development project incorporating thousands of artists and patrons around the Bay Area. It is a "meta-contextual" sculpture, a social organism overcoming a focus on the nature of objecthood and embracing the conceptual nature of collected energy dedicated to artistic play.
Its purpose is to construct an independent hierarchy of beliefs and values. The Garage does so by giving reason to a space for a purpose other than its original intention. It constructs its own context for the reading of art and redefines the relationships of the people involved. By changing our relationship to the space itself and to each other, we provide meaning and reason to the simple act of being, thereby enabling artistic exploration through play for play’s sake.
The vision of the Garage Biennale is to inspire artistic conceptualism and foster a progressive aesthetic in a non-commercial atmosphere. Specifically, the Biennale exists as an annual exhibition modality to showcase contemporary experimental practices. It highlights the immaterial and the unconventional, and values process over product, and appreciation over consumption. If art is defined as the closest thing to life without being life itself, then The Garage gleefully plays within the space between. For more info, please visit http://www.garagebiennale.com
Lu Deer Fang - Artist, Professor of Art
Education and Distinctions
• Masters Degree of Fine Art, San Francisco Art Institute, 2007
• Professor of Digital Media, Sun Yet-Sen University, Guangzhou China
• Awarded Southern Exposure Alternative Exposure Grant 2007
Recent acclaimed artworks/events
• Show Some Color 2 - Fabricatorz
An event-based media project that included an open call for performers and video-makers, a live one night event, a 1-month online voting process, and two public access television screenings.
http://fabricatorz.com/projects/
10. Professional Development. How will this project grow your capacity as an artist?
This project’s unique approach to seeing, making, and interacting will not only enable our group to grow and develop a deeper understanding of how collaborative and interactive art work impacts and, potentially, influences the public - it will also expand our own practice based on what we will learn from the public. We are deliberately giving the public the agency to imagine and represent their own notions of fashion and national identity, with our decision to use the clothes they bring to our banks as our media and materials, because of our interest in what they can bring to us. Being concept-based artists, it is our hope to never reach an end but to continue seeking and growing our repertoire of with the public and with other artists. We hope to connect publics intellectually and artistically with one another, and more we want to connect artists and publics, for the growth of communication between all of us.
This project is just the beginning of what we plan to be an extended and sustainable international collaboration. Through inserting Chinese art and culture into the fabric of San Francisco culture and vice versa we hope to further develop this developing network of Chinese and U.S. contemporary experimental artists concerned with creating art in alternative contexts and intersecting art and the public sphere.
Moreover, we hope to use this project as a stepping-stone to build momentum for the financial and cultural sustainability of an organization dedicated to facilitating artistic and cultural dialogue between China and the U.S. Funding this project will help us reach our long-term organizational goals of bridging Chinese and American contemporary art and culture. In the big picture, we believe this project will be a first step toward making our collaborative team synonymous with top-level contemporary experimental international art.
Currently, project team member Justin Hoover has been formally trained for international management and the administration of projects of this type. Coupled with his production of art, his established curatorial practice at a professional level, and his experience in development/fundraising, this project is sure to be both impactful and sustainable. The biggest hurdle to get over in the establishment of an organization of this type is the initial funding. Thus, with help from the Black Rock Arts Foundation, we can build this bridge for art, culture, and the world.
11. Outcomes. What are the tangible outcomes your art project will achieve through the support of the Black Rock Arts Foundation?
[Response limited to 1000 words]
Tangible outcomes include
1) Four guerilla fashion shows incorporating 20 models each, and multiple conceptual fashion lines
2) Two gallery exhibitions for two months
3) Two publications; a book/catalogue and a magazine
4) A line of intellectually and physically consumable clothing
5) A digital web archive of the project
6) An expanded network of internationally minded artistic collaborators
Other outcomes include exposure to varied talented artists supported by the Black Rock Arts Foundation, and access to an expanded public due to the ability to expand current levels of marketing and public relations. In addition, another outcome of this project will be the synergy created by increasing the size of the pool of impressive talent that Black Rock Arts Foundation unites. Incorporating this project into the Black Rock Arts family will absolutely create energetic dialog and substantial future collaborations between our collective and yours.
Additionally this project will have an output of a line of intellectually consumable clothing, which is also physically consumable. The outcome of this production is a redefinition of style and the means of production in our environments. As we utilize fashion as the impetus for a public forum to address the terms 'individual' and 'masses', we also create a style of fashion that is simultaneously conceptual art and a consumable product for sale in galleries and that is meant to be worn in the everyday. We will create new forums and new communities through dialogue and practice centered on ideas of fashion, art, nationalism, and internationalism in the global age.
Budget: Expenses and Income
Total budget request: $8,000
Expenses (USD)
Description Amount
1. Clothing Remix/Remake
- Workshop/Studio Rental in Guangzhou (3 months at $400 ea.) $1,200
- Clothes $300
- Stipend for workers (3 workers at $150 ea.) $450
2. Guerilla Fashion Shows
- Materials costs for production $450
- Stipend for models (20 models at $30 ea.) $600
- International Travel for U.S. collaborators $2,000
(2 tickets at $900 each, 2 visas $100 each)
3. Gallery Exhibitions
- Shipping clothes, books, magazines to U.S. $200
- U.S. gallery space $1,000 In Kind
- Hospitality $500 In Kind
4. Publications
- Book printing (edition of 500) $1,500
- Magazine printing (edition of 1,000) $1,000
- Stipend for photographers (3 photographers at $100) $300
- Writers' and artists' contributions $1,000 In Kind
subtotal in kind $2,500
subtotal cash expenses $8,000
total expenses $10,500
total requested $8,000
Income
Expenses (USD)
Description Amount
1. Sales
- Clothing Remix/Remake $500
- Artwork from exhibitions $500
- Donations at door of exhibition $500
- Direct mail fundraiser initiative $1,000
total income $2,500
5 Month Timeline
June
Establish workshop space in Guangzhou
Begin open calls to public for workers and clothing contributions
Establish dedicated website
July
The main construction of clothing phase
Solicit writers and artists to contribute to publications
August
Run fashion shows in Guangzhou
Print books and magazines
Send clothes, books, and magazines to San Francisco
September through October
Exhibit in Guangzhou and San Francisco
Distribute magazine throughout Guangzhou and San Francisco
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