Way Out / monthly payment project

Monthly Payment project

«Monthly Payment» – alternative exhibition project (gallery), started in 2012 in Moscow. This project started more as artist-run gallery, but had great demand among artist, so have become different volume. In 2013, project has held several sessions, including a guest visit to the 55th Venice Biennale. Participated in Special program of the 17th International Art Moscow Fair, Gallery Night in St. Petersburg and showed the project in Kiev (Ukraine). In 2014 had a booth on Art Vilnius Art Fair.

The «Monthly Payment» project conducts research on pricing in contemporary art from the first person. Every month there is a thematic show. Artists attaches to their works paychecks for any common expenses that match cost of an art piece. It's not the cost of production of exact work (canvas, paint), but something of common life: electricity bills or checks for petrol.

We are one of rare gallery formations in Russia – focused on presenting actual problematic. The project «Monthly Payment» is looking for a new format. In addition to its research function, it is also conceived as a method of renewal of the direct contacts between the producers and the consumers of art.

Contacts: +31 614 928707 buyvid@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/monthlypayment

MONTHLY PAYMENT an alternative exhibition project curated by Anna Buyvid

Addressing the question of price is the aspect not only of the market, but also of the metaphysical relations. Indeed, as a unified settlement system is brought into the picture, in the minds of some it negates the personal accountability and creates a model for the free conversion of ethics. This certainly concerns the mainstream viewer, not versed in the nuances of the art world.

The direct interaction with the world of visual art puts more tangible issues on the agenda. For example, what constitutes the cost of an artwork?

On one hand, the price of an art object is a rhetorical question. This is because it occasionally seems that in each particular case of sale, the calculation formula is basically written on the spot. Besides, it incorporates many case-specific unknowns. What is more important to take into account: the relevance or the weight of an artwork? The wholesale purchase or the status of the collector?

However, this is an erroneous ideology, partly constructed by the jealous, petty bourgeois, partly by the non-professionals with the currency symbols in their eyes. So on what exactly does the author base the value of an artwork when they name the price?

Often an act of sale for the artist is about recognition much more than it is about financial gain. However, the chances of meeting their personal altruistic patron are close to the chances of a young maiden encountering a prince on a white stallion. When the oil prices are falling and the leading galleries are changing the nature of their activity, the artists, considered by convention to be unearthly creatures, have to

become realists. So it's sometimes the very odd coefficients that find their way into the authors' calculations.

First of all, the project «The Monthly Payment» develops as a study. For the financial equivalent of what costs are the artist willing to trade their work – the supply of food for the winter or for a new car?

This is what every participant of the project determines individually – and what surely will be interesting to all parties involved in the trade: the analysts, the art historians and the potential owners of the artwork.

The pricing is crystal clear – each exhibited artwork covers one of the items of expenditure, as evidenced by the financial documents submitted by the author. The artists claim the legitimate cost of their artwork, regardless of the fluctuations of the art market. A confirmation of the price could be a check, a bill, a receipt, a ticket or other. The acquirer can offer the artist with a variety of payment methods: cash, bank transfer, art exchange, barter, a system of mutual settlements, stocks, bonds or securities. Credit system can also be introduced – a work of a major artist can be purchased for the collection by the means of instalments, equal payments at moderate rates.

We all know of the successful pre-Marx attempts at cooperation between the artists and the art lovers. Everybody is familiar with the stories of Van Gogh and Niko Pirosmani. However, if in the earlier times the especially talented could exchange their artwork for food, today this is hardly possible - the gulf of misunderstanding between the ordinary shopkeepers and the contemporary artists is particularly great.

The project «The Monthly Payment» is looking for a new format. In addition to its research function, it is also conceived as a method of renewal of the direct contacts between the producers and the consumers of art.