Hi!
I apologize for the delay in responding.
First, I'd like to mention that I'm extremely grateful for the your responses. I've attempted to provide an interface for the artists, their work and an extended version of the curatorial statement that I provided on Add-Art's 'shows' page, on my site: http://tobeyalbrightandfriends.com/curated_DoubleAct.html. It's there that you'll have access to WITH's statement regarding their contribution to this project. Additionally, I think it's notable that their contribution was 'site-specific' for this Add-Art exhibition.
The following paragraph from my extended statement might help answer some of my curatorial decisions: "Some of the artists in Double Act have been included because of the ways they can be positioned within the dynamism between the virtual and the physical. Others have been included for their ambiguous identification with The Hustler and The Carer modes of communication. While the range of each artist's practice varies substantially, each of the artists explicitly employs conceptual tools in their art making practice, tools that continue to work online. It's also important to note that the artists were given no directions or guidelines for adapting their work to the add-art format. Thus, methods vary from creating site-specific drawings to cropping previous work to presenting previous work alongside the images that informed it."
Yet, I feel like the following paragraph is equally important regarding my intentions: "However you decide to locate these artists within this project, please reconsider the way in which you reciprocate their presentation. Instead of discarding their work as an additional attempt to call upon your monetary support, act out your ability to extend your attention and contribute to their request for conversation. This form of support is vital to the current development of our language of seeing and our vocabulary for caring."
The kind of reciprocity taking place here [on this forum] seems to be more along the lines of staking a claim of individualized preferences of what you, the user[s], wants Add-Art, its curators and all the artists it supports, to be doing: refraining from using any visual language which may have the remotest relation to advertising.
In the framework of my curatorial statement, I discuss one of the 'uses' or 'characteristics' of art's online representation as The Hustler. Does it not make sense that visual language which is reminiscent of what we might openly identify as 'hustling' be included? Another artist in this exhibition had discussed with me his use of 'advertising's language' in the work that he submitted to this exhibition. I'm curious if you've noticed this artist and I am surprised as to why you haven't offered your dissatisfaction with this body of work.
Unfortunately, it seems as though I may be missing my mark, curatorially-speaking, as it was my intention to set up an open-dialogue BETWEEN these characteristics of The Hustler and The Carer. I feel I am missing the mark because thus far, this forum is not being used for any of The Carer's characteristics. There has not yet been any mention of the work of the other artists or the show's theme. Nor is there any discussion regarding the ethical tensions an artist faces when presenting their work within a context that has been developed partly for economic transaction [the Internet], or in the case of Add-Art's subversive apparatus, the specific advertising spaces that we are all too familiar with.
Regarding your concerns with WITH's work specifically, I'd like to suggest that you read about their goals and purpose, because I understand them to be in line with Add-Art's. [I'm more than happy to discuss this specific artist's work with you but I suggest you contact them as well, as I've made a button to email each artist on my site.]
We should also note that unless the artist has made work specifically for the dimensions that Add-Art subverts, [as was done in the case of Thomas Martin's and WITH's works] in a way these cropped images are advertisements for the actual works, hoping to direct your curiosity to apprehend them in a more holistic way through further investments of your attention. Additionally, I'd go as far as to say that a great deal of art on the Internet is being used as a sort of advertisement for the artists' entire bodies of work. This can been seen as an aspect of living and working as an artist in a capitalist economy. But I'd like to encourage that we reflect on the two modes of online art presentation that I discussed in my statement.
Furthermore, my concern is that if Add-Art's users require that Add-Art only be used to replace advertisements with images of a specific aesthetic then Add-Art ceases to be a platform for art production and simply becomes a service for art consumers.
