Does Do It, Do It?

I use the term "dialogue" here in the same way that Leonard Swidler discusses it in his essay What is Dialogue? (1990). While I acknowledge that Swidler's essay was written twenty-five years ago, I feel he addresses the concept of "dialogue" in a very direct way that assists me with unpacking the term. Swidler says that "today when we speak of dialogue we mean something quite definite, namely, a two-way communication between persons; one-way lecturing or speaking is obviously not meant by it. However, there are many different kinds of two-way communication: e.g. fighting, wrangling, debating etc. Clearly none of these are meant by dialogue. On the other extreme is the communication between persons who hold precisely the same views on a particular subject. We also do not mean this when we use the term dialogue; rather, we might call that something like encouragement or reinforcement, but certainly not dialogue." Swidler suggests that dialogue is "a two-way communication between persons who hold significantly different views on a subject, with the purpose of learning more truth about the subject from the other" (1990: 1).

Yoko Ono's pioneering Grapefruit (1964) was a form of an instruction book and was one of the inspirations for do it. Obrist also suggests Marcel Duchamp inspired do it through his use of instructions as artworks: In 1919, Duchamp had sent his sister Suzanne a set of instructions to hang a geometry textbook outside her window as his wedding present to her (http://calvertjournal.com/features/show/2443/diy-exhibition-do-it-moscow-garage-hans-ulrich-obrist#.VRUhr-Epp1M).
http://curatorsintl.org/special-projects/do-it
The ICI website continues in explaining the practical side of the exhibition: "No artworks are shipped to the venues, instead everyday actions and materials serve as the starting point for the artworks to be recreated at each 'performance site' according to the artists' written instructions. Each realisation of do it occurs as an activity in time and space. The essential nature of this activity is imprecise and can be located somewhere between permutation and negotiation within a field of tension described by repetition and difference. Meaning is multiplied as the various interpretations of the texts accumulate in venue after venue" (http://curatorsintl.org/special-projects/do-it).

According to Whatis.com, "a brand is a product, service, or concept that is publicly distinguished from other products, services, or concepts so that it can be easily communicated and usually marketed. A brand name is the name of the distinctive product, service, or concept. Branding is the process of creating and disseminating the brand name. Branding can be applied to the entire corporate identity as well as to individual product and service names" (http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/brand).
Jerry Clyde Rubin (1938-1994) was an American anti-war activist and counterculture icon during the 1960s and 1970s. DO IT!: Scenarios of the Revolution (1970) was a definitive publication about cultural revolution in the United States. Do It! was about rebelling against the status quo; it was anti-consumerism, anti-mass-production, and reflected the radical attitudes, paranoia, and dissidence of that era (Braunstein and Doyle 265).

http://www.newstatesman.com/art-and-design/2013/08/do-it-manchester-art-gallery-perpetual-exhibition-constantly-regenerating-its
https://www.artsy.net/post/editorial-do-it-with-hans-ulrich-obrist-the
Obrist (b. 1968, Zurich, Switzerland) has curated more than 250 shows since his first show "World Soup" (The Kitchen Show) in 1991. He is currently the co-director of the Serpentine Galleries in London. Before this, he was the curator of the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville, Paris. He has edited writing by Maria Lassnig, Leon Golub, Gerhard Richter, Louise Bourgeois, Gilbert and George and is the editor of a number of artist books. Since 2001 he has held a post as lecturer at Facoltà delle Arti, IUAV, Venice.

https://www.artsy.net/post/editorial-do-it-with-hans-ulrich-obrist-the
According to Dwell.com, "one constant has been Obrist's position at the vanguard of the cutting edge. Through decades of prolific essay writing, public lectures, finely assembled shows, and an expertly honed ability to see fine art and pop culture from a highly refined and holistic perspective, Obrist has won over legions of fans"( http://www.dwell.com/books/article/do-it-compendium-hans-ulrich-obrist).

http://artreview.com/reviews/october_2013_review_do_it_2013_manchester_art_gallery/
http://curatorsintl.org/special-projects/do-it.
https://www.artsy.net/post/editorial-do-it-with-hans-ulrich-obrist-the
http://www.e-flux.com/about/
http://www.e-flux.com/projects/do_it/itinerary/press_0501.html
https://www.artsy.net/post/editorial-do-it-with-hans-ulrich-obrist-the
The Burning Museum describes itself as "a collaborative interdisciplinary collective rooted in Cape Town, South Africa. The space which we find ourselves in is one which has been scarred and seared by a historical trajectory of violent exclusions and silences. These histories form the foundation of an elusive and at times omnipotent democracy that occasionally reveals its muscle in the form of laws and by-laws in public space. It is from this historical climate and present context that the work of the Burning Museum engages with themes such as history, identity, space, and structures. We are interested in the seen and unseen, the stories that linger as ghosts on gentrified street corners; in opening up and re-imagining space as potential avenues into the layers of history that are buried within, under, and between" (https://burningmuseum.wordpress.com/about/).
https://burningmuseum.wordpress.com/page/2/.
https://burningmuseum.wordpress.com/page/2/.


do it
Megan Amy Kidd
Student Number: 329449
Exhibitions Histories
HART 4024 / 7028
27/03/2015
Plagiarism Declaration

1. I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is using another's work and to pretend that it is one's own.

2. I have used the _______________ convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in, this essay/project/report/_____________, from the work, or works of other people has been attributed and has been cited and referenced.

3. This essay/project/report/_____________ is my own work.

4. I have not allowed, and will not allow, anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.



SIGNATURE: __________________________

DATE: _________________

do it
Introduction
Conceived in 1994 by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist as a platform for problematising the notion of the exhibition as an occurrence restricted to a particular space within a finite timeframe, do it entails of a set of artist-produced instructions that can be carried out by anyone, anywhere, at any time. The exhibition's artworks comprise of the instructions themselves and their manifestations as performances or physical creations. Over twenty years do it has been featured in at least fifty different locations worldwide. It is the world's longest running and most far-reaching exhibition.
This paper argues that do it presents itself as though it is interacting with its audience in a way that speaks to Carli Coetzee's idea of "accentedness". Through making the exhibition open to participation from the audience, do it poses as a platform for dialogue, as opposed to the typical monologous exhibition rhetoric. The flexible structure of the show, which changes according to the needs and wants of its changing venues and contexts, is what has helped it maintain its seminality through longevity and widespread occurrences.
Carli Coetzee's Accented Futures: Language Activism and the Ending of Apartheid (2013) is an argument for a move towards using dissimilarity and variation within people's viewpoints, histories, and frames of knowledge as a form of "language activism" to bring about social change. Coetzee, speaking in a post-apartheid South African context, believes this "accentedness" is imperative to working actively towards the ending of apartheid. She states that by being aware of the past, without attempting dismiss or disregard the underlying tensions within South African society, we may allow for discrepancies and difference during communication. do it speaks to these ideas of true "dialogue", of listening to others and being open-minded with regards to views and interpretations of others. do it claims that it hopes to change the way people interact with exhibitions, by taking on the audience members' individuality, their own interpretations and unique expression. I argue that while on some levels it achieves a sense of dialogue, the lack of adequate documentation on audience participation thus far highlights the problem with deficiencies of information on exhibition histories, as well as continuing to highlight Obrist as the hero of the do it story whilst all of the so-called "included" audience members slip into oblivion once they have enacted the instructions. The history of this exhibition therefore, I believe, does not embrace Coetzee's concept of "accentedness".
The second concept that I argue is evident in this exhibition's mission statement versus its realisation is that of "irony", discussed by Njabulo Ndebele. Ndebele states in his publication Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essays on South African Literature and Culture that "irony is the literary manifestation of the principle of contradiction" (2006: 66). Ndebele's sense of irony, as I shall demonstrate, is evident in the exhibition's title and the well-known references it evokes. I also argue that the contradiction Ndebele speaks of lies within do it's claim for a democratic format which actually serves to promote Obrist's reputation and supports an underlying autocracy that comes through in its manifestation and history.

do it
do it began in Paris in 1993 as a conversation between Obrist and artists Christian Boltanski and Bertrand Lavier. They were concerned with how exhibition structures could be rendered more adaptable and fluid. They were inspired by other artists who had experimented with the idea of instructions as artworks such as Yoko Ono and Marcel Duchamp. This discussion led to the idea of a show that could take instructions from artists as a point of departure, allowing them to be understood and expressed by individuals whenever and wherever they wanted. To test the idea, Obrist invited twelve artists to send instructions, which were then translated into nine different languages and circulated internationally as a book.
According to the Independent Curators International website, "each do it exhibition is uniquely site-specific because it engages the local community in a dialogue that responds to and adds a new set of instructions, while it remains global in the scope of its ever-expanding repertoire". The site continues in saying that do it is "less concerned with notions of the 'reproduction' or materiality of the artworks than with revealing the nuances of human interpretation in its various permutations and iterations". In this way, do it is supposedly interested in individual interpretation, implying that they really are interested in its audiences.
The visual language of the exhibition can be defined as an ever-evolving format that relies on change, experimentation and movement to keep its momentum going. As do it changes completely in form for every venue, it is less of an "exhibition" and more of a "brand". I believe that do it has maintained its image, its brand, through its use of consistent titling, fonts, colours, its artist instruction-based format and the use of Hans Ulrich Obrist's name. I have examined the way do it presents itself in three forms: the catalogue, do it: The Compendium (2013), the e-flux website featuring instructions and realisations, and the do it exhibition at Michaelis, the University of Cape Town's Fine Art School, in 2014. But first, the consistent factors of the show should be looked at in order to understand the do it brand.


The Constant Factors
Firstly, the title: do it is written in small letters. It includes no capital letters, no exclamation marks, and no complicated words. These are words people use every day, embedded in hundreds of sentences. One interpretation of the title and its design could be that is that it is anything but intimidating. It is not shouting at you to do it, it is suggesting; it is nonchalant. The design of the title suggests that Obrist and his fellow creators of do it want the exhibition to appear welcoming and approachable. It implies that the exhibition is interested in listening to what its audience has to say, to see things from their point of view, to listen to their accents.
Ndebele's sense of irony comes into play here. Bruce Althuser notes that do it's title:
evokes two seemingly conflicted messages: both the familiar Nike advertising slogan, 'Just Do It', as well as the spirit of protest as embodied by activist Jerry Rubin's 1970 publication DO IT!. do it plays a rhetorical game that, while partly offering concessions to audience empowerment, is far more rooted in sinister smokescreen. On recognition of this, the spectacle becomes increasingly insufferable. In this interrogation of artwork, exhibition and curator, ideas are sometimes darkly comic, and all too often divorced from meaning.
By calling up memories of a mass-produced brand, Nike, as well as an anti-mass-production publication, do it is appealing to Ndebele's definition of irony. Ndebele criticised "what he took to be the artificial dichotomy between art and politics in the1980s, and subsequently called for a 'rediscovery of the ordinary', a concern with the everyday and a reflective, ironic engagement with it, in order thus to attempt to transcend apartheid and move beyond it on a fundamental intellectual as well as experiential level" (Geertsema 2013: 2). Ndebele sees irony as a potentially powerful literary tool to subvert, to make a stand. I believe that do it is not using irony here in a way that empowers the audience, I agree with Althuser that the contradictions that lie within the title echo the contradictory mission and actualisation of the show.
The second consistent factor of the do it exhibitions is the colour orange. When asked why the colour orange was chosen to be associated with the do it brand in an Artsy interview, Obrist answered as follows:
The colour orange was basically because in Switzerland, where I grew up, there's a supermarket called Migros. It's interesting because it belongs to the people; it's almost like a [cooperative] kind of structure—it's a supermarket that belongs to everyone, so millions of Swiss people are shareholders in this company. And they have a "Do it yourself" spirit as a company, and their color is orange. They have these orange signs. And for me, growing up with this, when Lavier and Boltanski said "do it," I said, orange.
Obrist sees orange as "the colour of the people", a colour of sharing. He believes it is sends a message of involvement and of membership. Obrist's answer here has revealed how he wants do it to be seen: as a platform for listening to one another's accents.
The third constant feature of the show is that it consists of a set of artist-made instructions, and both the instructions and the realisation of them are seen as the artworks. For example, Alison Knowles' work, Homage to Each Red Thing (1996) asks partakers to place a red object into a square in a grid on the floor. Choices include a doll with a red hat, a piece of fruit, or a shoe. Richard Reinhart, the director of the Samek Gallery which included this instruction in their do it (2013) exhibition said: "We invite gallery visitors to bring one red thing, and eventually the entire floor will be covered, creating a new art work every day" (Kopchick 2013). In researching this particular artwork I could not find any images of participants adding objects to Knowles' work, nor could I find any responses to it. Whilst Knowles' work is encouraging the audience to take part, all we hear is her voice. This was the case for most do it audience realisations. Researching do it resulted in a frustrating lack of information on questions such as: How closely must one follow the instructions of do it, to count as realising a particular work? How significant in this regard are the curator's or the artist's intentions? In another sense, this notion of "giving instructions" could be seen as a mechanism the exhibition uses to exercise control over its audience, posing as dialogue but functioning as another way to exert power.
The fourth constant feature of the show is Hans Ulrich Obrist's name attached to each do it exhibition. Obrist, described on Artsy as the "world's busiest curator", has curated over 250 shows. He is a curator, writer, editor, lecturer, and he is considered to be a star of the art world. He is consistently titled as "the curator" of do it. But this tag leads us to ask the questions: does Obrist actually choose every artist that is going to be writing the instructions for every show? How does he find out enough about each nation's art scene that these "over 50 events" have taken place in to know who is relevant and who should be included? Does he just go with the status quo? Or does he consult with "art experts" in each location to obtain advice? If so, who are these experts? If he doesn't do the selection then who does? Obrist is continuously highlighted as the star of this on-going exhibition. Jennifer Thatcher (2013) claims that do it relies "heavily on the currency of celebrity art brands (not least Obrist's) and their ever-expanding global distribution". So we could ask, would do it have achieved what it has without Obrist's name to pull in "celebrity" artists? Would participants be interested in enacting the instructions of an artist they have never heard of in a small gallery featuring an exhibition that did not carry the same international fame?
It is clear that Obrist hopes to continue associating himself with the do it brand. The Lives of Artists, the Lives of Architects was published early in 2015. Stricken across the bottom of the otherwise white cover is the do it orange. Obrist is consistently associating himself with the do it brand and no fellow-conceivers of the idea, no artists, no curators and certainly no participating audience members are going to usurp his authority. The ICI website mentions that they "manage" do it – which suggests members may be part of the selection process, but this is not clear. Stating that do it is an exhibition "for the people", as is indicated by Obrist's symbolic choice of orange, is contradicted by the autocratic "ownership" Obrist has placed over do it, a truly ironic situation where what is being said is contradicted in reality.



The Three do it's
As mentioned previously there have been numerous other do it events, but I have chosen to isolate these three events: a book, an online experience and a museum exhibition to examine do it in the various forms that it can take. do it: The Compendium (2013), published by D.A.P. (Distributed Art Publishers) and ICI, compiles all of the instructions produced so far by participating artists. According to Obrist, "the book is a history, a story of all these different learning experiences, because wherever the exhibition went, it learned. I think it's a very arrogant thing for an exhibition to go out into the world and claim to know, to impose its knowledge to the world; it's important to learn from different contexts". This sounds like Coetzee's statement that her book has "argued that the long ending of apartheid can only be brought about by a high degree of tolerance for difference and disagreement" (2013: 167). Coetzee's concept of "accentedness" encourages this very idea of "learn(ing) from different contexts". But when one pages through The Compendium (2015), there are no images featuring audience participation. So one could ask the question: what is this exhibition learning? Who is it learning from? Can we hear any other voices or accents other than those of the artists and Obrist?
The second version of do it I looked at is the do it online version, created by Obrist in conjunction with e-flux in 2004. e-flux (Electronic Flux Corporation) is a "New York-based artist-run company dedicated to worldwide distribution of information for contemporary visual arts institutions via the Internet. Established in 1998, e-flux has built a readership of more than 33,000 international visual arts professionals and a client base of some of the most vital contemporary art galleries, museums and publications". do it at e-flux is an online compilation of artists' writings, instructions, interviews and uploaded audience participation. e-flux says that "This online edition of do it is a practical utopian show" and that do it is "less concerned with copies, images, or reproductions of artworks, but rather with human interpretation". The e-flux website, I believe, has most successfully achieved this idea of "accentedness"; by allowing participants to upload their interpretations onto the portal they are in a sense allowing their voices to be heard. What I believe would truly extend this idea is if the artists then responded to the audience interpretations. The creation of the do it e-flux version was a move towards including the accents of the participants, but this is not the only version the exhibition exists in. It is, first and foremost, a museum-based exhibition.
The final platform I explored was the do it show at Michaelis from the 2nd to the 13th of September 2014. I have examined one example of an artwork from that do it exhibition by The Burning Museum, "a collaborative interdisciplinary collective rooted in Cape Town". They responded to an instruction from Julius Koller created in 1996 that said "cut out question marks from various newspaper or magazine texts. Then, during your walks in a city, stick them onto public poster texts wherever you consider it to be important". Their response was to post bogus posthumous awards from UCT to Peter Clarke, a well-known black South African artist who passed away in 2014, all around Cape Town. The mention of the artwork on The Burning Museum website is a copy and paste from the ASAI (Africa South Arts Initiative) Facebook page, which is not about their artwork, it is about how nobody took any notice. The title says "UPSTARTS BURNING MUSEUM, MASQUERADING AS THE UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN, AWARDS PETER CLARKE HONORARY DOCTORATE. The posthumous award took the form of an artwork exhibited at the Do It! exhibition at the Michaelis Gallery. It came and it went and no one blinked". This begs the question, who responds to the responses by the participating members? Nobody took any notice of The Burning Museum's artwork, according to ASAI, suggesting that these realisations of instructions could be secondary to the impressive do it brand and Obrist's name.
Exhibition histories is a new and developing field within art history, as is confirmed by Rattemeyer (2010) saying that, "the history of art has conventionally focused on artistic production, emphasizing the individual artist in the studio and the influences on his or her practice". Gleadowe also stated in 2010 that "Only recently has it become accepted that exhibition history is an essential part of art history, especially since the late 1960s when artists' engagement with space and site has become an essential part of their practice" (11). But I do not believe that the developing nature exhibition histories can be blamed for the lack of audience representation within the exhibition's history. do it has taken place over fifty times, a large catalogue has been published on the history of the show and it has an interactive website, leaving little room for exclusion in its history.

Conclusion
The continual transformation of do it highlights notions of collaboration and questions concepts of authorship in art production. I believe that do it encompasses a widespread problem: participatory art has the potential to lose sight of its origins as an inclusive, empowering encounter, appearing as social cohesion that in reality does not exist. Rattemeyer (2010) stated that "we need to…argue for an examination of art in the context of its presentation in the public realm. Every decision about the selection and installation of work, the choice and use of the venue, the marketing strategy and the accompanying printed matter informs our understanding of the art on display". This statement is certainly true, and the way in which do it, presents itself as a democratic, sharing, "accented" platform needs to be examined. I believe that do it, does not "do it" for the people. In fact, Obrist's claims for subverting typical exhibition structures and championing the role of the audience are ironic. The open-ended structure of the exhibition has allowed do it to become seminal through its longevity and global reach, and Obrist's name has been tightly bound to this ever-expanding brand. Minimal audience representation in the history of an exhibition that claims to listen to other's accents is undoubtedly contradictory. do it masquerades as an all-inclusive and open event, but lack of audience representation in the exhibition's history has proven that its concern for "accentedness", for its willingness to listen to its audiences' voices, is, ironically, an excellent marketing tool that has bolstered and sustained the global do it brand that drowns out any quieter voices.



Word Count: 3873
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