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30 October 2007
Freee in Warsaw
Freee in Warsaw attending the conference Opening of spaces: Localization of Public Art, speakers included Tone Nielsen and Simon Sheikh. Freee gave a reading of The Manifesto for a Counter Hegemonic Art.
30 October 2007
Photos from How to make a difference
Freee 'How to make a difference' at International Project Space. Exhibition now extended now until the 7th December 2007.
How to Make a Difference. Photograph, poster. 3m x 6m, 2007 Freee
The social function of public art is to subject us to civic behaviour, Paint on wall, 6m x 3m. Freee 2005
Installation view. Foreground, Don't Let the Media Have the Monopoly on the Freedom of Speech, photograph, poster 2007 Freee
Installation view, foreground - Protest is beautiful, silk flowers 6m x 3m 2007 Freee
The function of public art for the gallery, Vinyl text, 6m x 3m, 2007 Freee
3 September 2007
How to make a difference
Forthcoming exhibition at International Project Space, Birmingham, curated by Andrew Hunt
'How to Make a Difference' Freee
Thursday 27 September to Saturday 3 November 2007
Wednesday 26 September
Manifesto reading from 2 - 4pm with volunteers creating a makeshift choir
Artist Talk 5 - 6pm
Private View 6 - 9pm
Manifesto Reading
Freee invites you to participate in a sound work to be recorded (without an audience) at the International Project Space in Bournville, Birmingham on Wednesday September 26th between 2pm and 4pm.
We are putting together a makeshift spoken-word choir to read aloud sections of the Freee Manifesto. Copies will be supplied in advance. Freee will be reading the entire manifesto but unlike conventional choirs, however, participants will be asked to join in only with those sections of the manifesto that they agree with which could range from a small section or sentence to the whole thing! If you are interested in joining the manifesto reading please email us at info@freee.org.uk
Excerpt from a recent interview with Andrew Hunt and Free Art Collective.
(full interview will be published in the exhibition booklet that accompanies the exhibition)
Andrew Hunt: Can you tell me about your exhibition at International Project Space?
Freee Art Collective: We're producing a new billboard for Birmingham, which shows us making placards with a group of students and protesting with them. Outside the gallery will be a sound work of a makeshift choir reciting excerpts from our manifesto - the key thing is that we are asking our choir to behave as individuals by joining in only with sections that they agree with. We are also showing the flowers from the Protest is Beautiful piece, a billboard sized photo of us wearing the slogan 'Don't Let the Media to Have the Monopoly on the Freedom of Speech', some slogan works on the walls, and some videos of interventions in the public sphere.
The exhibition will contain examples of our earliest works - the slogan text works - alongside the works that we have done to overcome what we thought were limitations in those works. We were worried that the slogans had no contexts, as if they existed outside the world. This isn't how we think of language use or of the way that slogans function socially, so we started to situate the slogans in specific contexts.
The 'Neo-Imperial Function...', for instance, is a text in Mandarin which is shown in Birmingham, then photographed and shown in China, then brought back to Birmingham. So the text is embedded into very specific contexts - and never quite feels at home.
We became dissatisfied with this way of working because we felt that the slogans, even when they were embedded in contexts, remained anonymous and faceless. We wanted to stand by our words, to show our commitment to the slogans by appearing with them. We talk about this as a form of embodiment - we want the slogans to be embodied by being physically supported by us. The slogans, in the first place, were an attempt to go against the prevailing tendency in art to be non-committal and vague (for example, asking questions of the viewer without taking the risk of saying what you think). By embodying the slogans we not only state our beliefs, we commit ourselves too.
As a whole the exhibition will show a range of ways in which language, debate and text can be used to build counter-public spheres. This is why the show is called 'How to Make a Difference': the works act as templates for citizens to activate themselves within the public sphere.
7 June 2007
Protest is Beautiful
2 June – 1st July 2007
Opening times Friday – Sunday 12pm - 5pm
1000 000 mph is proud to present Freee's first solo show in London, profiling existing and new works that engage with contemporary political and socilal realities, critcally addressing and using the format of public art.
In this exhibition works include: Protest is Beautiful, a new work made from a funeral wreath in letters of yellow silk flowers, photographed and mounted on plywood outside the gallery, appearing as shop sign. Both a melancholic lament and reminder and iconic public message in the style of shopping or advertising. Inside Don’t let the media have a monopoly on the freedom of speech, 2007 a new work as a direct message in a photograph pasted on a large installation wall, while How to talk to public art, 2006 is a video of a dissenting tour of Manchester’s public artworks. Instead of being subject to the secret codes of public art, the citizen addresses commemorative monuments in terms of jokes and histories, with the intention of highlighting the public life that goes on around public art, for example ‘Is it me or do monarchs have an unfair advantage when being seen or heard?’’ or ‘There are no exerts on happiness’. Another new video work is included, Public space, public realm, public sphere 2007 in which the three chant, like a choir or kindergarten class, theoretical attacks on dominant conceptions of the public.
7 June 2007
Manifesto launch
Freee will be launching their Manifesto for a Counter-Hegemonic Art at the 52nd Venice Biennale in conjunction with Gavin Wade and his new strategic questions at the Intellect&ComprehensionKiosk.
Book launch at 52nd Venice Biennale: 4-5pm 8 June 2007
Kiosk6: Intellect&ComprehensionKiosk, Isola di San Servolo, 30100 Venice
Nearest vaporetto stop: Line 20 from San Zaccaria to S. Servolo
or special Biennale shuttle from Giardini to S. Servolo
The Freee art collective’s manifesto is based on The Communist Manifesto of 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Freee’s manifesto combines an unrelenting critique of contemporary art with a powerful and radical proposal for culture’s political and social revival. No artist’s book has ever been so damning or full of hope!
Mobile number for more information: Mel Jordan 00447717834059.
12 January 2007
The Freee Art Collective Manifesto for a
Counter-Hegemonic Art
Freee’s new manifesto for a counter hegemonic art is being shown as part of Basecamp’s Team Players for Plausible Artworlds, at The Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia USA. You can download Part I: Art and the Bourgeois Public Sphere - The history of all hitherto existing culture is the history of hegemonic struggles for free or purchase the book for a mere £5.00 including P&P.
Freee recently contributed a poster advertising the new manifesto to I am the Fly, curated by Gail Pickering, Montevideo, FRACPACA, Marseille, France.
12 January 2007
Bring Me Sunshine
Freee’s new performance Bring me Sunshine was devised specifically for Peace Camp, curated by Bob & Roberta Smith at The Brick Lane Gallery, London. The performance saw Andy, Dave and Mel in bed in the gallery for the day. Mel says, “It felt like being in hospital especially when Mark McGowan came to see us – it felt like he was visiting. I liked going to the bagel shop best; we made the staff laugh as we were all dressed in the same pyjamas.” See Time Out review for more information, they seemed to like it.
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