Spamming Back!

Treating spammers as artists (2007),
Performance, Spam Emails C-Print on Aluminium, 45x30, Galerie Schwartz, Vienna

Spamming Back! is a highly ironic performance dealing with the global phenomenon of spam emails. Christoph Schwarz is playing the role of young gallery owner Christoph Schwartz, who discovers a new avantgarde art movement after years of desperate searching within the market. The “New Networkers” are young, eager artists scattered across the globe who combine surrealistic poetry with computer graphics. They produce ironic pictures that provoke a critical view on consumption and our materialistic society. Schwartz has received the spam mails of Vincent Chang, Elaine Kerlin and Frank Lawson, interpreted them as part of the artists‘ portfolios, as work samples, and decided to show them in his gallery. Schwartz never understood the concept of spam, he treats the spam producers as artists – never thinking of this incident as banal mass advertising. He then sells pictures without managing to reach even one of his artists in order to send them their share of the profit. Schwartz contacts the artist after each successful sale, at the same time offering his gallery as their official vehicle for representation in Central and Eastern Europe.     

The performance takes place in the Gallery Schwartz. After each purchase a polaroid photo of Schwartz and the collector is taken and immediately sent to the artist via email. Using the same types of promises as spammers do, he offers his services as a leading gallery in Austria, at the same time trying to trick them into a contract of advanced payment. Confronting the spammers with their own strategy is the eponymous principle behind “Spamming Back”.

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with: Julian Palacz, Ellie Cooke
Photos: Kramar

Galerie kunstMARKE / ausstellungsraum.at / Gerhart Scholz
Spamming Back in FM4 Connected 29.12.2007