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Performance name:
Art Beggar in Urbana-Champaign 2017/ アート乞食イン亜婆納・娑裴因, 2017. Time: April 22-23, 10am-5pm Location: Main Quad, Champaign/Urbana, Illinois Inspired by AIDA Makoto's performance in 1993, Art Beggar in Ginza/アート乞食イン銀座. Scroll down to see more about this Occupational Realism performance |
The poor art student MEW3 is going to give an Occupational Realism Performance "Art Beggar in Urbana-Champaign" from April 22-23 at the Main Quad. Artworks give-away. Take one get one free, with Mew3's signature. And hopefully you can sell them at some decent price in the future, in case MEW3 gets famous, just in case.
MEW3 was a student in studio arts and art history. She has studied and lived in China, Japan, and America, but she doesn't feel she belongs to anywhere. She will continue traveling around the world in the future. By the end of April, MEW3 will be forced to move out of her art studio space, so she will have no place to store her art works and other stuff. Therefore, we decide to give a performance in which MEW3 will be an art beggar giving her artworks for free. Signature available upon request. If you feel generous, please give MEW3 some money for food or just give her some food. If not, that's OK, but please make sure to take some of her works with you. Featuring artworks: prints, digital prints, oil piantings, crafts, plushies, figurines, etc.Adult-content pieces available upon request. Thank you! |
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Photo by Janet Kang.
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"Art Beggar in Urbana-Champaign Gives Back"
by Janet Kang, a journalism student. A plump orange cat makes its way to the center of the Quad, carrying a cardboard box and a tote bag filled with artwork. Today, Lingjun Jiang, better known as Mew, MEW3 and TachibanaMew—is an art beggar. On Saturday, Apr. 22, the art beggar sat alone, writing the words “Free Art” on her cardboard box in black sharpie. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., a handful of people passing by and three or four people left with a piece of artwork in their hands. “Through this art beggar event, I hope to give away my works to people and let them make good use of them,” she said. “This project shows sustainability—instead of throwing things away, I give them to others as a way to recycle my works.” ...... |
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Detail Description:
This performance draws inspiration from Japanese contemporary artist Makoto Aida’s piece in 1993 when he graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts and had no money to support his art practice. Aida disguised as a beggar in Ginza, one of the most popular place of art in Tokyo, and he sold his works and even his graduation certificate at the “beggar stall/street vendor”. He also set up a donation box to ask others to support his art practice. Intrigued by the “Occupational Realism” performance that mixes art practice and everyday work together, I also want to experience such occupational realism performance in which I pretend myself as a beggar. Making art is both my school assignment and my everyday practice. And indeed, I am a poor art student like a homeless beggar facing the crisis of being kicked out from the studio space by the end of this semester. I have no place to store my art works, both the good ones and the trashy ones. Therefore, at the performance, I will display all the works that I don’t need anymore. I will ask people to take them for free, and if they take one, they can take one more for free. The performance will go on until all the works are taken away. The general plan is described in the sketch below (img.1). I will also make a catalogue showing all the works I have, so if people are interested in a specific one that is not included in this performance, they can request and I can hand the work to them another day. This performance serves both a pragmatic and artistic function. On one hand, I can get rid of the works I don’t need so it makes my studio cleaning easier. On the other hand, this performance presents a realistic perspective of a low-brow art student today, and the performer herself can experience what it will be like as a homeless beggar. In this way, the work warns people of the risk of studying art, so they can cherish their future-seeking majors even more. Moreover, this conceptual occupational realism performance complicates the definition and stereotypes of art students, raising awareness of the current situation of students in studio art majors. |
Documentaiton format:
The performance will be documented in photography and videos. The presentation will be in the form of power point slides. I will introduce the origin of the art beggar idea, and then talk about my intention and preparation, and show the images and video. Later, I will talk about my personal experience in this performance. In the end, I will present a catalogue containing works that no one has picked up yet, so the audience and choose some and take for free. I will also upload the images of the performance on twitter and tag Aida to inform him about my performance. Aida is very active on twitter, so I hope that I can get some response from him. I really admire this artist. Performance name:
Art Beggar in Urbana-Champaign 2017/ アート乞食イン亜婆納・娑裴因, 2017. Time: April 22-23, 10am-5pm Location: Main Quad, Champaign/Urbana, Illinois Inspired by AIDA Makoto's performance in 1993, Art Beggar in Ginza/アート乞食イン銀座. Scroll down to see the give-away catalogue 2016-17 If you are interested in any of the works below, email Mew3 or just use any method you can to contact her, and the work will be yours AT NO COST!!! |