PSJM´s work CENSORED at the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations ( Marseille, France)
The «Asia Project» has been censored again. This time in Marseille and by a public institution that is subordinated to the French Ministry of Culture.
In July 2016 we received a loan request to participate with «Asia Project» in the exhibition «Nous sommes foot» [We are Football], curated by Florent Molle and Gilles Perez, in the Mucem (Musée des civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée). We sent the work from Bordeaux, where it was exhibited at the Musée d’Aquitaine during 2016. We signed a loan agreement in May 2017. In June we received the fees and, on two occasions, they requested from us details to proceed with the installation of the light boxes. Then, once the date arrived, we communicated the exhibition in RRSS and, surprise, the very same day of the opening we received an email asking us for the address to return the pieces, because they are no longer part of the exhibition. Without giving any explanation, or anything like an apology.
The issue is that the work was eventually hung (see the photos below). And later, someone passed by and ordered that the pieces must be removed, against the desire of the curators. (According to unofficial information we have been able to collect.)
We have asked for explanations from both, museum and curators, but they have not given us any kind of explanatory answer: they are very busy with the exhibition, they say. And they refer us to Jean-François Chougnet, president of the board of the Mucem, because it seems that he was the one who decided to remove the work from the show.
What’s happening here? It seems an alluring subject for the pieces of Hans Haacke, because it turns out that the French Football Federation sponsors the exhibition and NIKE is the main sponsor of the French Football Federation. In short, a corporation decides –directly or indirectly– what is exposed and what not in a public institution. This is how things stand.
DON´T THINK. JUST DO IT!
+info:
The «Asia Project» was created in 2005 as a proposal for the public space. Specifically, it was placed in the Plaza Mayor of Gijón, from where it was withdrawn due to pressure from the Adidas brand. In the line of work developed by PSJM, the team-brand targets the contemporary universe of brands as creators of symbolic values, abstract identities that shape the individual’s own identity. The great multinational trademarks, true symbols of capitalist democracy born in free countries, base their race towards maximum profits in the exploitation of Asian workers. For these large corporations, locating their factories in countries where labour conditions for workers are ignored, or where they even prohibit unionism by means of threats, does not pose any contradiction to the messages later transmitted to forge their brand values, always related to individual freedom and the drive for self-improvement. “Project Asia” presented four of these brands (Nike, Puma, Adidas y Reebok) in lit displays under one and the same slogan, MADE BY SLAVES FOR FREE PEOPLE, pointing out the irony in the values that they really represent.
After the Adidas censorship in 2005, we received many support and much interest to show the pieces from curators, galleries and directors of art centers and museums. Here is a list of spaces of freedom where «Asia Project» has been exposed in its different editions:
2006
«Para todos los públicos». Sala Rekalde. Bilbao.
2007
Zoo Fair. Riflemaker Gallery. London.
BàleLatina 07. Galería Baró Cruz / Blanca Soto. Basel.
«La Movida». Galería Blanca Soto. Madrid.
2008
ArteBa ́08. Galería Blanca Soto. Buenos Aires.
Notting Hill Fair. Riflemaker Gallery. London.
«PSJM». Scala Galerie. Berlin.
«Asia Project». Riflemaker Gallery. Londron.
2009
Open studios. GlogauAir. Berlin.
«Brand Strategies». Espacio Marzana. Bilbao.
«Brand Strategies». Galería Trama. Barcelona.
«Colección 1». CA2M. Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo. Móstoles. Madrid.
2010
«One Shot!». B.P.S.22 espace de création contemporaine. Charleroi. Belgium.
2011
«Red Concepts for Right Collectors«. Whiteconcepts Gallery. Berlin.
2013
«PSJM: A critical decade 2003-2013». San Martín CCC -CAAM. Las Palmas de G. C.
2014
«One Shot!» MuBE. Museu Brasileiro da Escultura. São Paulo.
«PSJM: A critical decade 2003-2013». SAC. Canarias Gobernment. S/C de Tenerife
2016
«Football: à la limite du hors-jeu». Museum of Aquitania. Bordeaux.
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