JUST DO IT! THE SUBVERSION OF SIGNS FROM MARCEL DUCHAMP TO PRADA MEINHOF

Opening: Friday, 25th February 2005, 7 p.m.

The subversion of signs from Marcel Duchamp to Prada Meinhof.
A thematic exhibition on the disturbing reinterpretation of powerfully effective images in art, popular culture, political agitation and advertising."Culture Jamming" is an aesthetic strategy of civil disobedience which has been used increasingly frequently not only in Pop and Art, but also in political activism over the last two decades However the history of cultural "disruptive sounds" goes back a long way, for instance to Marcel Duchamps Readymade of the Mona Lisa with a painted moustache from the year 1919. It includes Kurt Schwitters use of the series of letters MERZ, which the Dadaist took from the name "Commerzbank", and culminates in Andy Warhols hyper-affirmation of consumption.  It branches out from the comics of the "Situationist International" which were politicised with radical slogans, to the Punk Fanzines of the 1970's, and leads to the present with Media Activism forms like Hoaxing, Sniping or Viral Marketing. Just do it! endeavours to portray the area of conflict between new emancipatory codification of signs and the appropriation of "Culture-jamming" technologies in consumer-oriented deviation marketing, taking into consideration the art-historical references.
Curators: Thomas Edlinger, Raimar Stange, Florian Waldvogel

Artists:
Jay Adams, AES-Group, autonome a.f.r.i.k.a.-gruppe, Martin Arnold, Craig Baldwin, Mike Bidlo, Pierre Bismuth, Michael Blum, Daniele Buetti, Captain Zip, Marcel Duchamp, Öyvind Fahlström, R. Buckminster Fuller, General Idea, Johan Grimonprez, Grupo de Arte Callejero + Mesa de Escrache + Colectivo Situaciones, Guerilla Girls, Richard Hamilton, John Heartfield, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Andreja Kuluncic, Sherrie Levine, Marko Lulic, George Maciunas, Michel Majerus, Michael Mandiberg, Monochrom, New Collectivism, Olaf Nicolai, 0100101110101101.org, Dan Panaitescu, Bruno Peinado, Dan Perjovschi, Raymond Pettibon, Daniel Pflumm, Prachya Phinthong, Tobias Rehberger, Jamie Reid, Ad Reinhardt, Stefan Römer, Martha Rosler, Sabotage, Anne-Marie Schleiner, Kurt Schwitters, Santiago Sierra, Sister Corita Kent, Situationistische Internationale, Valerie Solanas, Elaine Sturtevant, Die Tödliche Doris, ubermorgen,  Piotr Uklanski, Jeronimo Voss, Silke Wagner, Peter Weibel, Johannes Wohnseifer, Yana Yo.

The project is sponsored by