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PLEASE, TEACH ME CHINESE / PLEASE, TEACH ME ITALIAN MARX A PRATO / GUCCI A PRATO - Concept: reload // video on youtube coming soon FOR PRATO VIENNA KUNSTHALLE, January 2019 ... tHANKS TO Nicolaus Schaffhausen and Juliane Bischoff who gave me full freedom to show what i had to show
///// this ART WORK /// and i consider it my most beautiful and most diffiuclt and painful and most costly work next to Comme des Marxists, actuallz part of it //// was commissioned by contemporary Museum Centro Pecci and The Town of Prato, la Comune di Prato. Prato is the center of MADE IN ITALY, of Italy"s textile industry that is dominated by Chinese work, Chinese capital. see THE REST of the story below: upfront tha;nks to EVERYBODY INVOLVED.
managerial part: PART 1 - 13 min (managerial outfits) What is a Snakehead ? youtube video
PART 2 - 13 min (managerial outfits) Marx a Prato / Gucci a Prato, 2018 , 13 min - video projected ( wihtout any gucci logo and is in color https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xibxRVt2F0
uncensored : THE MIDDLE PART his video is seperate of the fashion show but included in part two https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-id49h5ptg4&feature=youtu.be
PART 3 - 5 min (managerial outfits)
WORKER PART: Please, teach me Chinese / Please, teach me Italian / Marx a Prato / Gucci a Prato, The condition of the working class a Prato, 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU4mVy_nh80 SEE IMAGES OF FASHION SHOW.. WORKING PART.. this video was made under special duress see controvery
the end
rehearsal
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PLEASE, TEACH ME CHINESE / PLEASE, TEACH ME ITALIAN MARX A PRATO / GUCCI A PRATO /// the story //// ALL THE WORK was paid by the Town of Prato through a passive administrative arm, the PIN, the Prato University thougth I only got some little money, contracts and lawyers letters. All CURATORIAL DESCIONS AND ALL PRODUCTIVE SUPPORTIVE DISCUSSIONS AND WORK WERE DONE in a very productive way BY Pecci CHIEF CURATOR RACIAL, ECONOMIC, & POLITICAL TENSIONS combined with TYPICAL capitalist exploitation and greed still ran and still run HIGH and resulted in Chinese riots, bloody police action, constant distrust, non pleasant razzias after TRAGIC factory fires who killed and injured people.
the slogan of the invitation was officially "ART INSTEAD OF SECURITY CAMERAS" yoko ono was invited and delivered the word DREAM I was invited and recieved a NIGHTMARE /////// the head of PRATO PR / Rosanna Tocco didn't like that I projected google results for "Prato and textile worker". the results I not only worked into LOGOS & LABELS but projected these images during the runway show as part of the art work . UNFORTUNATLEY, it created a scandal: the Pecci director, Cristina Perrella confiscated my work and was released only a few days before the VIENNA Kunsthalle show, with the help of a lawyer. costs: I had to renounce all my money owned *(passed and signed contracts - above10 000 Euros), and sign an absurd non disclosure agreement which i not only break here right now but broke already with the display of the translation of the contract and its greedy, ignorant, absurd, FREE SPEECH AND ART disrespecting, censoring conten. I am also financially responsible for the costs of a Milano Law office exceeded 5000 EUROS. -- please, contact me if you want to see the original signed contract in Italian i had to sign to receive most of my work but not ALL OF IT. ALSO: The centro Pecci board member EDOARDO DONATINI assaulted me on stage verballyand after the Q and A also physically. so was also Pecci PR director Rosanna Tocco. Pecci and Prato officals made sur that all RECORDED SCENES ARE KEPT till now away from the public.. THE MILANO JOURNALIST Alessandra Galletta who was filming with various cameras AND ASSISTANTS the action for 3000 Euros as a fee did NOT LEAK any material to me. I begged her to do so and nobody would have noticed. THANKS TO an independent person , one youtube video appeared on line with the discussion after the FORECEFULLY INTERRUPTED SHOW. Pecci board member EDOARDO DONATINI can thus be seen assaulting me here verbally. (he had to be hold back) the video also shows the Pecci Director question my capacity to understand the situation and explain us, how Prato is such a great place supporting the general accusatoin that i showed lies. She also tried to rediculize me by saying that they expected something else then only google images. see for yourself.. see DETAILS BELOW / thought Perrella oscilated between directing everything "i could and could not do" at the end she tried / and still tries to hide behind the PIN , the Prato signing arm of the sponsor. Yet all work * at least what they didnt steal ---bc not everything was retunred ---- had to be picked up at the PECCI. any Prato PUBLIC eye: THEFT OF AN ART WORK DONATED BY THE PRATO COMUNE to the Pezzi. An acquisition was decided by all parties, signed and passed the city councel freeing the money to be allocated and paid out. IT was the Pecci * with or without the PR lady who refused to accept this artwork /// HENCE depriving the public museum of a defacto paid art work by me they wanted.
- Concept: THE DRESSES / GARMENTS/ OUTFITS / SHILOUTES PRESS RECEIVED La Repubblica - see screenshot (Laura Montanari) PLEASE, TEACH ME ITALIAN / PLEASE, TEACH ME CHINESE, MARX A PRATO / GUCCI A PRATO /2018 This project started with an invitation from the chief curator at the Contemporary Art Museum Centro Pecci in Prato, Italy, near Florence. I was invited to propose a public art project intended to improve the intercultural relations in Prato. The true meaning of this invitation became quickly clear when they added, “we believe more in art then in surveillance cameras." The project was proposed and paid for by the city to mitigate the increasingly violent group tensions between their two main competing populations. Since the 1960s, Italy’s main textile center has been employing cheap migrant labor, mostly from China. This has transformed Prato into the second-largest Chinese community in Europe, and they are familiarized now with the entire production line of the textile industry. The “Made in Italy” brand is, in all likelihood, made, managed, and owned by Chinese or Chinese-Italian companies in Italy. The people referred to locally as cinesi are making up not only a large population of both legal and illegal migrant labor, but also a large population of multigenerational naturalized Italian citizens of Chinese descent—what would be called Chinese-Italians in the US. Many of them and their kids are no longer fluent in Chinese since the language is not taught in Italian public schools. On the other hand, new arrivals from China do not usually speak or even learn Italian if they don’t plan to settle, and are only brought in for short time periods to work. They are often housed in the factories they work in, which may have contributed to various fires and casualties. The city’s conflicts are grounded in economic competition and European regulatory norms concerning working, health, compensation, and living standards. But Chinese labor in Chinese-owned factories in Italy has been successfully competing against the endlessly adaptable overseas production chain that's fueled by an abundance of cheap labor with low regulatory standards. I quickly decided to get involved with the places where these conflicting parties operate using some of the production facilities for which the city is famous. The existing conflicts touch also on xenophobia and racism, plus the age old worker-manager dialects. Last but not least, Chinese is a word that spreads fears around the globe, since capital speaks more and more Chinese (if I may use this metaphor to highlight the tremendous success of the Chinese economy and the relative decline of the economies of Western Europe and the USA). I first designed a logo for the project by overlapping two screenshots of translations of the phrases “Please, teach me Chinese” and “Please, teach me Italian." Various arrangements of this logo subsequently created my seven different designs for the fabrics. For my upscale designs for the managerial class, the project coordinator allowed me to produce woven cashmere fabrics with Marini Industries, used by many luxury brands. To tailor the fabric into eight silhouettes I made screen-shots from Gucci's last two runway shows. Gucci is today one of the most commercially successful and creatively respected players in the high-end fashion industry that produces in Prato. Their visual appropriation doesn’t stop anywhere. There are no stylistic, cultural, content, or belief-related borders and the result is a happy copy-paste party that delivers a delirium of colors, styles, and lifestyle mixing. The effect is mind-blowing and reflects how images are treated today with tools like Google, Instagram and any other visual-cultural libraries that may pass onto our screens and then, for Gucci, onto the runway. This boundless cultural appropriation was once called copying. Historically, newcomers to an industry are accused of violating patents and copyrights, which makes some see the Chinese as copy machines, no matter how innovative they are. It is therefore my prerogative to engage in copying as well. Concerning the outfits for workers I decided to turn the wheel of appropriation even more. Instead of copying, I purchased the clothes outright from the workers in Prato and retrofitted them with my labeling. Directly purchasing the shirt off the workers' backs is also symbolic. My markers consist of my standard please “teach me Chinese / Italian logo” and a second one that just is composed as a screenshot of an internet search with the terms “Prato” and “textile worker.” The final results will be presented in a filmed performance at an active factory. With the help of a local dance company, which is complementing their usual members with Chinese performers, I would like to re-stage online images of workers as well as managers. Finding a place to cooperate has so far be difficult since watching and filming in an operative sweatshop with employees working and living side by side is a challenge. Nobody working on the edge of legality likes to additional attention and scrutiny, whether it is intended to ease the intercultural conflicts or not.
FOTOS OF THE FASHION SHOW.. video to be coming..
see controvery about the making of this working part of this work
CHINA TOWN PpRATO II - performance / fashion show at a CHINESE FACTORY IN A CHINESE FACTORY
see chinese factory owner, who participated and posed free of willl (I did not force him .. he enjoyed it)
MORE IMAGES TO COME
PREPARATORY IMAGES.
more images to come
worker parts and accessories
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