The Bettakultcha event at Hebden Bridge on June 25th will see the inception of Art Furnace.
What is Art Furnace?
Art Furnace is the name for conceptual artworks given as Bettakultcha presentations (20 slides, 15 seconds each, no sales pitches). If art is anything that an artist says it is then it follows that an artist is whoever calls themselves an artist.
Bettakultcha calls itself a curator of ideas therefore we invite submissions from conceptual artists (remember you only have to call yourself an artist to be an artist) to perform their works at the Hebden Bridge Trades Club. Assistants of artists can of course, perform the work instead should the artist be unavailable.
You don’t have to be anything at all to just attend the event and enjoy the exhibition as a member of the audience.
How does it work?
Here is an example. I have the idea of creating an installation in a gallery. Instead of attempting to realise the installation by raising funds, negotiating with galleries, drinking with the ‘right’ people etc, I simply put together a Bettakultcha presentation using 20 slides which describes the installation and the desired response I am trying to elicit from the visitors. The presentation of the idea will be deemed to be the artwork which, on completion, will have a creative commons licence so that anyone can take the idea and do whatever they want with it so long as they give a credit to the original artist. This makes exposure for an artist easy and cheap—no Arts Council needed.
Why?
Because we can. Because we make stuff up as we go along. Because the art market is another product of consumerist society and has no relevance to the people outside of that market. Because we like to cause trouble.
So what?
We’re not sure … we’re starting a furnace and we’re going to forge something by destroying some other things. If people find these new artefacts interesting then we’ll produce some more, if the furnace becomes starved of oxygen then at least we’ll have warmed our hands and excited our brains for a short while. And we’ll have created a furnace.
Tickets for the event and where to email your intention to present can be found here: