Notes on Okay

Büro BDP & the MINI Museum of XXI Century Arts


Broken Dimanche Press are delighted to announce that Büro BDP will be inaugurated with Martin John Callanan and the MINI Museum of XXI Century Arts.

Since 2007, Callanan has linked his status updates across social networking sites to display messages in unison. The updates always read “Martin John Callanan is okay“, with corresponding dates to show when they were published.

For the first exhibition at Büro BDP, Callanan has printed all the status updates on a single table sized sheet of roll paper. Using the obsolete technology of a pen plotter, which marks the text onto the paper with a standard writing pen, the text characters have been reproduced with machine precision. After the opening night, the table will gradually revert to it’s everyday use as an office desk.

The 209 updates are displayed sequentially in reserve chronological order on the MINI Museum of XXI Century Art which occupies the window on Emserstraße.

Vernissage & BBQ: Thursday 21 April 2011, 7-11pm.
Show: 22 April – 5 May 2011

Büro BDP
Emserstraße 43 / 12051-Berlin

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Martin John Callanan is Okay – Pin board project

The Pin Board Project opens with Martin John Callanan. It is an attractive exhibit that makes so much sense right now. and it is so clear and frank and simple and has such a nice taste. This exhibit has no rubbish in it – it doesn’t have anything at all really. It is okay. We know it’s okay because Martin told us. We hope the work in this show will leave you alone more or less and only grab your mind. which is okay. But no experiences. we hate experiences in art. We prefer to experience things in real life.

Pin Board Project

Pin board project
space is everywhere

The Pin board project is organized by Angus Braithwaite, Benedict Drew, Rudolf Reiber and Julia Tcharfas who are reasonably modish and quite friendly group of artists. The project is currently situated in studio 5 at the Slade School of Fine Art, which is located on Gower Street in London. The Pin board constructed by Angus (and fucking beautifully I might add), was assembled from Benedict and Julia’s recycled art works and can quite seamlessly fit into any institution or space and can appear in almost any locations in the future. The exhibitions will alternate biweekly starting on Thursday, November 20. 2010, each show chosen by the artists that preceded it. Thus the project will curate itself really. and maybe have something new to offer each time, and maybe something interesting even.

Finally an art space that is like a momentary revelation one has passing something unexpected on the sidewalk. or a quick glance of the eye of a nice stranger. or a pleasant high. It is like everything radical that’s happened in New York in the 70’s and in other symbolic places. An encounter that you are not sure whether it is or isn’t a work of art and you want to steal it. and you can. because they are just ideas. And it doesn’t matter what you decide to do with your ideas. which you can just think about. or use. or throw away. And everything is always a reproduction including this text: which is like the one I read in an art magazine by Gregory Battcock. But I shouldn’t talk about that because I should focus on the art. and it’s okay in this case because it’s good art.

And another thing about this project is that perhaps it isn’t an art space but a space for ideas that are not intended to be any more than ideas. As such they are pretty much invisible. which in itself is a good idea. We’ve suspected. for some time now. that art perhaps can be integrated in our daily lives and now it is. Therefore there’s nothing that can be damaged and we don’t have to worry about lighting and hole filler.

Martin John Callanan is okay
Wednesday 24th November 2010 – Tuesday December 7th
Studio 5, Slade School of Fine Art, Gower St. London

encoding_experience/

Martin John Callanan is Okay will be shown at encoding_experience/ Plimsoll Gallery, University of Tasmania, Australia. 10 October – 31 October 2008

encoding_experience/ is the first of a series of exhibitions inspired by the ways in which artists are embracing critical, hands on interventive strategies towards the understanding of, and experimentation with media. The artists in the show open up issues of privacy, piracy and control, paradigms that are deeply embedded into technology and the way technology is designed. Most of the artists favour a collaborative, socio-centric approach to their work. They have an agenda about thinking through questions such as; Where does the technology come from? What is the real use of a computer? What are the social issues around regular access to domestic machines i.e. game consoles, home stereos and digital cameras. How do we use and question systems that tirelessly reproduce and augment environments, image and sound?

Actively engaging with conceptual concerns, DaDa-esque notions of performance, hacking and intellectual property; encoding_experience presents an insight into how electronic media and craft knowledge operates in current art practice, not only in terms of its functionality, but also in regards to artists who have a critical approach towards the politics, aesthetics and ecconomies coded into these systems.

Is Martin okay?

Sam Easterby-Smith writes:

…I figure he must be someone I was chatting to in the Cornerhouse or somesuch. A few more clicks and it became apparent that he is some crazy multimedia artist type and happens to be involved in a thing called the Velocity Festival based at Folly Pictures in Lancaster (where I used to hang out) and has been taking photographs of Morecambe Bay in some kind of interactive GPS-tracked SMS-influenced way and that this would all be visible from the “Map room” on platform 3 of Lancaster Station. His facebook status is currently “Martin is okay” a missive he has been repeating periodically for the last few weeks. What if Martin is not okay? What happens then? What if he’s got a cold or something? Anyway I still am not quite sure who he is…

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