Documentation of the exhibition 29th. March 2018 at SCHAU FENSTER in Berlin Kreuzberg.
(no english subtitel)


    SHRED D' ART has been realised

    The SHRED D' ART jury consisted of:
    Uta Rosenbaum (Curator), Daniel Janik (Artist) and the Fortunists.

    Out of 90 submissions of the SHRED D 'ART call for entries the following artists were selected:
    Klaas Hübner, Laila Seidel, Pola Brändle, Louis Frehring, Hannah Becher and Tobias Köbsch.


The presentation of the work of the six selected took place on March 29th, 2018 at SCHAU FENSTER in Berlin Kreuzberg.

The work elected for devaluation was "DC 19.1" (oil on canvas) by Tobias Köbsch.

Our Crowdfunding-campaign was successfully completed with the achievement of the first funding target.
Therefore, we devaluated "DC 19.1" in exchange for 1200, - € during opening.

Vision Box

Artists and art-producers are currently uncontrolledly swamping the art market with their products. Only a very small part of it pays off. Our project, SHRED D’ART, sets out to confront this development and help the art market to once again become a space for everyone.

    Quick Guide to SHRED D’ ART

    This is a quick introduction to the concept of SHRED D' ART.
    For deeper insights in german into the basic principle of SHRED D’ ART please have a look at the next section source where you will find the sub-sections Five Good Reasons, Conceptions and Backgrounds.

What does SHRED D’ ART want?
SHRED D’ ART wants to promote art production.
SHRED D’ ART wants to help creators and artists to make a living.
SHRED D’ART – Who is it for?
For you  – if you want a fair price for your artwork.
For us  – because we love art, and we want to promote it.
For everyone  – because SHRED D’ ART sheds light on the precarious working conditions creators and artists are confronted with.
Why SHRED D’ ART?
The sheer number of artworks circulating on the art market binds money that never arrives at the hands of artists. Cleaning up the circulation sphere frees such money and increases the demand for new artworks.
SHRED D’ ART – How does it work?
SHRED D’ ART buys works of art for fair prices. The works are publicly exhibited; each piece is professionally reviewed. Subsequently the works are ritually devalued in a dignified ceremony  – they are shredded.
What does SHRED D’ ART do for creators and artists?
The artist can sell us her work for an adequate price. His work will be exhibited by SHRED D’ ART in an exhibition and receive professional acknowledgments by academic experts. The artist will be publicly acknowledged for her participation in SHRED D’ ART.


Does SHRED D’ ART want to decrease the production of art – should there be fewer artists?
No, SHRED D’ ART wants to promote production and help artists to eventually live off their work.
If my art is destroyed, why would I continue creating art?
Good question. Why indeed? But - why do you even create art if you can’t sell it, and it just sits in your apartment? Does working other jobs to make a living, thus having less time to create, really make sense to you? These annoying questions bother all of us. And of course, we all continue creating. SHRED D’ ART, however, is not the reason for all these questions; it’s rather an offer to support you as a creator, as an artist.

Also, have you ever wondered what happens to your works after the sale? Here is an example:
In 2000, janitors of Sotheby’s London dependence threw what seemed to be an empty box into a shredding machine. Apparently, they weren’t aware that there was a 157.000 $ painting by British painter Lucian Freud inside the box.
(Monopol, 5.11.2011)
Doesn’t the art market regulate itself?
If it would be able to do that, it would do it. There would either be less art or artists and creators would be able to live off their work. Obviously, this is not the case: the majority of all artists earn their living and the money to finance their creative work in other jobs.

The “invisible hand of the market” is a myth; it doesn’t exist in reality. Regulations and interventions are part and parcel of our economic system.
Why doesn’t SHRED D’ ART simply resell the acquired works?
Reselling the works would bind money at the secondary art market. Such money wouldn’t benefit those producing art. It would increase the mass of art, competing for the mass of money.
If art is made scarce, will only the rich be able to afford it?
It is already a fact that only "the rich" can afford the most current art works. On the one hand it depends with Bill Clinton's knowledge "It´s the economy, stupid!" and on the other hand with the question of a fair payment to the producers
If an artist sells his works for budget-prices, it is only because he undersells it and makes his money somewhere else. “The poor” can already only afford copies of real art works.
Why artworks have to be destroyed?
Artworks mustn’t be destroyed out of sheer capriciousness. But - there are too many artworks circulating on the art market without creators and artists receiving any financial credits. If there was less art on the so-called secondary art market, the actual producers would sell more works. Hence, we have to reduce the mass of artworks deliberately.
Isn’t the destruction of art unethical?
Yes, it is. But – even without SHRED D’ ART, art is destroyed on a daily basis. Wrong storage, or the fact that artists can’t afford storage space at all, are only two examples. Such destruction is neither paid for nor is it professionally curated.
Is it really the first such project in art history?
Art has repeatedly been destroyed as part of creative performances or in acts of sheer vandalism. SHRED D’ ART, in contrast, uses destruction as a necessary means to a benevolent end: The promotion of creative production.




SOURCE

Here you will find detailed information ( temporarily only in german )





SUPPORTERS

Stiftung Künstlerdorf Schöppingen (institution) | Hartmut Landauer (artist) | Philipp Winkler (author) | Stefan Demming (artist) | Melanie Windl (artist) | Jan Langhammer (radio host) | Mathias Engelmann (musician) | Roland Niehn (collector) | Matthias Eckardt (artist) | Merlin Baum (artist) | Kathrin Lau (theatre curator) | Roman Wilhelm (graphic designer) |Dr. Timo Ackermann | Isabel Phantomat (performance artist) | Biggi Hunger (choirmaster) | Uta Rosenbaum (art historian) | Lilla Hinrichs (graphic designer) | Martin Gensheimer (artist) | Timo Herbst (artist) | Annika Bielefeldt (physician) | Lutz Bielefeldt (artist) | Dr. Robert Huber (curator NRVK) | etc.