The Big Return Project

2011-12-27

Sandra Vivas has shown her work in Latin América, mostly in Caracas, Venezuela, where she is from, since 1989. She recieved her Master in Fine Arts, in 1995 from the New Genre Department, San Francisco Art Institute, USA, and her Bachelors Degree in Arts, in 1992 from Escuela de Artes, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas. She moved to Dominica, West Indies in 2009 and is in the process of reinventing herself to her new Caribbean Identity. Her works uses performance, video and painting to portray the problems of identity using a twisted sense of humor.
http://web.me.com/sandravivas

Anthony Marcellini and Laura Mott
THE GREAT RETURN GÖTEBORG: The Aesthetics of Consumerism
Göteborg Konsthall

The Göteborg Konsthall is an internationally recognized cultural institution with the budget of a small non-profit gallery; it is funded entirely by the city and state through public money or money gathered through taxes. Last spring it was almost shut down for four years by the Göteborg city council in anticipation of a new Konsthall planned to be built and slated for completion in 2015. The city, an extremely business oriented and business-centered city, felt they would save money by not funding this cultural institution in the interim until the new building was completed. Göteborg’s artscene rose up in anger over the cities callousness (See http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/nyheter/skandal-stanga-goteborgs-konsthall-1.1109974). The institution was saved from closure for the time being but its future is uncertain and in many ways dependent of the outcome of Swedens September elections.

At the Göteborg Konsthall we bought 4 books for a total of 1,350.00 SEK the equivalent of about 150.00 US. The Konsthall buys these books directly from artists associated with their current exhibition and sells them for the same amount they paid. They make no profit and if they don’t sell the books they lose money. As soon as we paid for the books we returned them for our money back.

ACNE
Acne is a clothing company founded in Stockholm in 1996, known mainly for their simply designed jeans a staple of any cultural producer. The company abstains from advertising it’s products in any fashion magazine and instead prints its own magazine titled “ACNE Paper” as an alternative way of communicating their collection. Beyond fashion, Acne is also a graphic design firm, a film production company, advertising agency and product, business and concept development office. “Fashion is the best form of self-expression”, explains Jonny Johansson, Acne’s Creative Director.

We went to the Acne store inside NK (Nordiska Kompaniet), Göteborg’s most prestigious department store described as “a cultural and commercial theatre”. Anthony tried on a pair of Acne jeans, they fit well, and bought them for the price of 1,099.00 SEK. 25% of this total is Value Added Tax (VAT) (219.80sek), which represents a portion of tax dollars that goes towards supporting, amongst other things, Sweden’s national social health and welfare system as well as its state and cultural institutions. One hour later Anthony came back to the store and returned the jeans stating, “I’m sorry I just can’t afford these right now.” The cashier replied don’t worry it happens all the time.

Anthony Marcellini is an artist whose work is shown internationally. Laura Mott is a curator. They live and work in Göteborg, Sweden.

Jane Kepner: Returning Dog Food Containing Corn Syrup to Costco

Jane Kepner is a Jungian-oriented therapist whose practice is based in Portland, Oregon. Jane received her MDiv from Harvard University, and her Phd in clinical psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She currently commutes between Portland, Oregon and the Jung Foundation in Zurich, and loves taking her two Vizslas for long hikes in the Columbia Gorge.

Born in San Francisco, Kristin Calabrese is a Los Angeles-based painter who received her MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1998. She works figuratively with oil on large-scale canvases that frequently feature domestic interiors, such as Luck of the Draw (2000), a mysterious portrait of a wrecked kitchen whose crumbling ceiling (painstakingly rendered in trompe-l’oeil) and strewn, uneaten food imply an earthquake. These interior scenes often take on anthropomorphic dimensions, as in He Loves Me (2000), a weathering and abandoned room that Calabrese imbues with the raw emotion of a break-up. In other works, people are prominent, such as First Kiss, Homeless on Venice Beach (2006), a hyper-realistic close-up of a young tattooed couple making out, and Spaghetti (2010), a meticulous self-portrait in which Calabrese has painted herself kneeling on the ground, her body shrouded by a stringy veil of cooked pasta. Elsewhere, Calabrese’s bold and blunt use of text, writ large atop the canvas, captivates us, as in “It’s not that I have been a saint, but I regret not sabotaging that bitch when I had the chance.” Calabrese has exhibited with Gagosian, Leo Koenig, Susanne Vielmetter, and Brennan & Griffin, amongst others. She also curates provocative group shows, such as Lovable Like Orphaned Kitties and Bastard Children (Green Gallery East, Milwaukee, 2009), with her partner, painter Joshua Aster.

Kendall Karam: Baltimore

The pictures I have submitted for Heather Sparks’ Big Return are centered in Baltimore, Maryland’s African & African American Community. Baltimore is roughly 60% Black.

The 1st pictures are from Go Logo, a store on Greenmount Ave, but instead of buying an returning something, I bought a fake Gucci cap for $20 and tagged it up, as I like to do to anything that has materialistic intrinsic value…

The owners are from Africa, but I must return to ask again from where in Africa, I asked, but have forgotten. The next set of pictures are from my Nigerian mechanic’s shop near Greenmont Avenue, his friend Lola was there with her baby Tobe. I loved their clothing, they & Lola’s dress are also from Nigeria. Lola is doing her master’s degree in social work at Morgan State University (MSU). The gray dress is my design based on Kuba clothe from the Congo, I designed it for a class, Traditional Arts of Africa, at MSU. All African Art is Art for Life Sake, not Art for Art Sake, like Western Art. The pictures of the two men with their baby girls distinctly resolves a change that is happening; young black fathers enjoying their children stereotyping away from the same demographic of young black men in jail.

Kendall Karam is presently a Doctoral Student in Urban Education: Advanced Studies Leadership & Policy @ Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. Her field of study is integrating Social Justice practices with STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) in the public school system. Her other degrees are from New York University and the University of Texas @ Austin in Humanities and Art History. In the 2000s she worked as a Online Marketing Analyst in Silicon Valley. She is a painter and graphic designer @ www.curvedspacegeometry.com or www.koloredna.info; she showcases other Baltimore @ www.kolorurban.com or www.blackevolutionart.com; and she showcases her public school student’s from all over Baltimore @ www.futureancients.org

2011-12-21

[Flash 10 is required to watch video]

Liz Miller: Piggy Goes to Market (Australia)

When I was initially invited to participate in “The Big Return,” my interpretation of the project was that it pertained to the excessive and unnecessary consumption that consumers obliviously participate in on a global scale. It struck me that I, and almost everyone I know, have been guilty of buying things we don’t really need at some point, and that this type of behavior is exactly what keeps the mega corporations that benefit only the ultra-wealthy elite. “Miss Piggy Goes to Market” is a parody of our shopping habits and a reflection of the absurdity of society’s spending problem.

Although Liz Miller was born in Los Angeles, she has spent most of her adult life in the Mission District of San Francisco. In April, 2011, she moved to Honolulu, Hawaii.

She completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Painting (1992) and a Master’s Degree in New Genres (1999)from the San Francisco Art Institute, and has exhibited static works, videos and performance pieces in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, as well as at public art spaces and galleries in major cities in Europe, Asia and Australia. She is currently PHD candidate in Visual Art at Sydney College of the Arts (part of the University of Sydney). The working title of her thesis is Contemporary Art’s Reinterpretatation of Media Clichés.

Liz’s practice as an artist is informed by her 8 1/2 year practice of Vinyasa and Ashtanga Yoga. She currently teaches yoga at Power Yoga Hawaii. She recently added Krav Maga to her practice- a form of tactical self-defense involving various boxing and martial arts techniques.

I feel that shopping and returning is both my right and obligation, and it is exhilarating to participate.

— Gordon Winiemko

Los Angeles artist Simone Gad was born in Brussels, Belgium to Holocaust survivor parents from Poland, who immigrated to the United States via Ellis Island and eventually settled in Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles. She spent her childhood watching her father , a custom European tailor, make patterns from scratch for ladies coats and men’s suits on his Singer sewing machine. Unable to emulate her father’s sewing skills, at the age of twelve, after seeing work by Vincent Van Gough and Ed Keinholtz at the Los Angeles County Museum, she secretly developed a desire to be a visual artist.

Gad began making fabric works in 1969, constructing them out of velvet, satin, embroidery, and beadwork. In the early 1970s she transitioned from fiber art to collage and object elements on vinyl. Since the late 1960’s, her work has encompassed self portraiture and architectural paintings; most recently her work addresses the preservation of “old” Los Angeles and it’s disappearing architecture, particularly Victorian homes and buildings within Chinatown Plaza in Los Angeles.

Her work has been exhibited internationally in solo exhibitions and group exhibitions, including a three person show with Andy Warhol and Keith Harring at Gallerie Beaux Lezard, Paris, France (curated by I.D. Gallerie Dusseldorf, Germany)Le Musee D’art Spontane, Brussels, Belgium, Rockocko Gallerie, Franfurt, Germany, I.D. Gallerie, Dusseldorf, Germany, La Foret Museum, Tokyo, Japan, Leienguth, Chartre, France, Wooloo Productions, Berlin, Germany, Primo Piano, Lecce, Italy„ Davis Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona, Spain, Leo Castelli gallery, NY, Allen Stone, NY, Matthew Marks, NY, Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art, NY, Museum of Contemporary Craft, New York, Arman Gallery, NY, The Knitting Factory, LA & NYC, MOCA, Los Angeles LACE, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, The Mississippi Museum of Art, Roanoke Museum of Art, Roanoke, Virginia, Tampa Museum, Tampa, FL, Tucson, Museum, Tucson, AZ, and within many other galleries, museums, and performance spaces. She is a recipient of grants from the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, The Artist Fellowship Foundation, a CRA grant, and honorariums from the Women’s building, Los Angeles, and The New Orleans Contemporary Museum of Art. In February 2012, her work will be exhibited in Santa Monica, CA at Track 16/Small Press Gallery at Bergamot Station, and at Bleicher/Golightly Gallery with support from the Getty Foundation.

In addition to her career as an artist, Simone Gad has appeared as an actress in numerous motion pictures and television programs, including Speed, the film version of Get Smart, and the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

This Project sounds like something for people with too much time on their hands.

So I guess I’m supposed to buy something expensive from a struggling independent artists gallery and then return it an hour later. Is that the point of this exercise? Simply to hurt other people’s businesses just for the sake of it?

— Jeff Ford, Maryland

Ben Prince started making Art with tape and pipe cleaners sometime in the 1970’s when Art was all about this thing called ‘analogue’. His dog never ate his homework because he never did his homework.He did manage to attend and even receive decent grades from the following schools, San Francisco Art Institute, Harvard University, Emory University,Oxford University, the Ithaka Program (they didn’t have grades but he did manage to be dismissed from class two weeks before the end of Second Semester). installation ‘Blue Tipped Pen” will be installed next month in Boulder, Colorado in conjunction with Laird Hunt’s release party for his book ‘The Impossibility’.

Faceless Watch: Rebecca Walker, Maui

Pics so low quality, but works in overall buyer’s remorse energy- with list of emails that came up under search for Rogan, store to which item to be returned; Long search for “RA” number and directions. After a month of trying to get it done, didn’t take photo of it all nice and neat in USPS envelope because…in hurry to pick up son from school. Ultimate irony: item is “timeless watch” a watch with no face, signifying emptiness.

Rebecca Walker is the author of the memoirs Black, White and Jewish and Baby Love; and editor of the anthologies To Be Real, What Makes a Man, and One Big Happy Family. Her writing has appeared in Bookforum, BOMB, Newsweek, Vibe, and Interview, among other publications. She has participated in creative collaborations at the Walker Art Center, Hammer Museum, Headlands Center for the Arts, Jewish Museum in New York, Mocca–The Amsterdam Cultural Education Foundation, and will introduce Kara Walker at the Merz Foundation in Turin this spring. She blogs regularly for The Huffington Post, and currently lives in Maui, where she teaches The Art of Memoir, a week-long master class for writers, philosophers, and visual artists.

Capitalism Is Over

The Big Return Project began as a piece for Capitalism Is Over, and artist movement created by Megan Wilson, Eliza Barrios, Cheryl Meeker, Amy Berk, Maw Shein Win, and Andy Cox.