Home Base

Radical collectives explore the future of art

by Rachel Frankford

Or, well, a camp-in, really. Twenty-four or so members from 10 experimental collectives around the world are spending four days at the headquarters of local artist-curator group BASEKAMP, in order to plan "Plausible Artworlds," a large-scale public convention that BASEKAMP intends to host in Philly sometime next year.

But have your Ph.D. ready if you want to understand what it's all about. BASEKAMP co-founder Scott Rigby describes the convention as an investigation into "alternative art world structures." Stephen Wright, a Paris-based art critic who has worked with the kampers, writes (referring to Foucault reading Borges, natch), "the Plausible Artworlds project hopes to engender … artworld-shattering laughter, bringing together not a 'Noah's Ark' of world pictures but a broad spectrum of plausible, mutually irreducible artworlds."

Alex Baker, curator of contemporary art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and one of the attendees at a recent dinner BASEKAMP held for area artists and curators, put the mission in less esoteric terms. "We're living in a very conservative moment," he says. "The thing that is really beat into our head is sales, auction sales, art that's easy for young collectors to get their arms around. … [BASEKAMP is] really interested in the way the art world is presented to us in the press, in art fairs, in general practice. They're not even sure maybe what outcome they want to achieve, but they want to do something different from the status quo.

"I could be wrong," he adds.

Artists will be flying in from Croatia, South Africa, Sweden, Italy and Australia, and they are all dedicated to collaborative efforts and nonmainstream or noncommercial ways of making what Marisa Jahn, from the California-based Pond collective, calls "experimental public arts."

Le bureau d'études hands out big-ass flowcharts mapping connections between governments and corporations. NSK (Slovenia's radical Neue Slowenische Kunst) has created "the first global state," complete with passports for citizens. London group C.Cred writes that one of its principle goals is "to enter into critical, non-institutional/academic dialogue about artistic strategies, tactics and contexts … to open up towards the production of on-going, alternative modes of practice, production, exchange and distribution."

Uh, raise high the flag of revolution, brothers and sisters.

But exactly what's gonna be raised this weekend isn't really clear. It might be pages of notes, or a full-fledged installation.

"What we're trying to do here is plan, and make it a creative process from the beginning," says Rigby. That means using the "artist-generated" devices the groups have used in their past work—such as a table with mics and dials wired so that you can only hear one person, that person can only hear another person, etc.

That sounds potentially, well, frustrating, but, in any case, the groups will be unveiling their devices and ideas in a public presentation on Monday. Then there's a party—your chance to throw down with the avant-garde. Sure, they're big on theory, but get a few drinks in 'em and they'll be fine. And if anyone mentions hegemonic cultural production, take that person by the hand and say, "Oh darling, just shut up and dance."

Mon., Sept. 18, group presentation, 5-7 p.m.; opening and after-party, 7-11 p.m., free, BASEKAMP Space, 723 Chestnut St., second floor, 215-592-7288, www.basekamp.com