Karl Smith. Orca (Rockstar Games). 2015
The third Tallinn Photomonth launches on 17 September with the opening of Prosu(u)mer, an exhibition curated by David Raymond Conroy at The Museum of Contemporary Art Estonia (EKKM).
Prosu(u)mer is a show that traces the mutually parasitic relationships between producers and consumers to examine the intertwined positions of author and user.
The term “prosumer” was coined in 1980 by the futurist Alvin Toffler to describe a “pro-active consumer” involved in industrial manufacture of highly customized products. Since then theorists and marketeers have applied the concept in various pursuits from seeking a neat solution to the problem of alienated workforce to segmenting the market even more profitably.
Meanwhile, postmodern ideas about shared authorship and borrowed authenticity remain weak in the face of our longing for the original and the new, relentlessly stimulated by market forces.
Stepping into the role of curator, artist David Raymond Conroy invites us to consider the position of the prosumer in an age where artists operate simultaneously as their own PR reps writing funding proposals, networking and updating their various online profiles, but also as their own patrons working a day-job in order to support their art practice.
Prosu(u)mer takes place in the context of an art biennial at the Contemporary Art Museum Estonia – once a precarious project space that first hijacked the title of a lacking institution and then went on to become an establishment of its own right. The exhibition brings together artworks as well as museological objects and pop culture phenomena, making visible the inter-related chains of aspiration and exploitation, admiration and critique, always tangling creative production and consumption.
The exhibition will be accompanied by A Prosu(u)mer Reader – a selection of essays curated by David Raymond Conroy. A series of public events will take place throughout the exhibition, including lectures by Greta Koppel, curator of Kadriorg Art Museum, Daniel Vaarik, an independent communication expert and Tõnu Pekk, professional investor. For more information on the biennial visit www.fotokuu.ee (always in progress).
NB! A limited number of printed copies of A Prosu(u)mer Reader are available to order. To request your free copy, please e-mail info@fotokuu.ee with “Send reader” on subject line. Please make sure to include your full postal address.
Artist David Raymond Conroy has been invited to curate the main international exhibition for Tallinn Photomonth ‘15. Born in the UK in 1978 and currently based in Brussels, Conroy works across photography, sculpture and performance.
Tallinn Photomonth is an artist-led biennial of contemporary art that engages with the economics and politics of contemporary photographic practices and their contribution to the construction of vernacular reality. The five exhibitions in the biennial’s main programme will run throughout the autumn at EKKM, Tallinn Art Hall, Art Hall gallery, Tartu Art Museum and Tartu Art House. The 6h Photographic Art Fair Estonia will take place from 2 to 4 October, with a VIP Preview on 1 October. The exhibitions and the fair will be accompanied by a series of public events and an educational programme for schools. The artistic leader of Tallinn Photomonth is Kristel Raesaar.
