Photo © Anna-Lucie Feracci
No Soul for Sale exhibits self-funded/ independent artists, producers and art collectives without defining walls so that nothing stops the flow of viewers and the interaction between audience and artists. From the Turbine hall balcony, the festival recalls scenes from Jodorowski and Moebius's intergalactic megapolis of cyberpunks, giant inflatables and information overload : it's pretty chaotic and difficult to identify each space unless following the red tape on the floor.
© K48 Kontinuum/ Photo © Anna-Lucie Feracci
At the K48 Kontinuum, most viewers are walking over the blown-up image of a sliced pizza, a symbol of cheap consumption that recalls how the NY collective paid their flights to London while selling 48 pizzas at a leaving party.
© Oregon Painting Society/ Photo © Anna-Lucie Feracci
At the Oregon Painting Society, the attention is on green plants : an electro-conductive sound intervention makes visible the improbable presence generated by human existence. As Matt Carlson argues, "Plants are hype these days".
So are sheds, inflatables, ballons, bouncy castles and other playful, lightweight, temporary architectures which cram the Turbine hall.
© Black Dog Publishing/ Photo © Anna-Lucie Feracci
Further away, Black Dog has opened a drinking haven, the only pub in Europe where only the staff can drink : customers play table football while the staff gets drunk. The pub is a playful metaphor on the means of the festival, a place where the emphasize is less on business than networking.
© Not an Alternative/ Photo © Anna-Lucie Feracci
The installation Tomorrow is another day, by the Brooklyn based organization Not an Alternative, initially produced as a reference to Taravanija's apartement, responds to No Soul for Sale in a direct manner : in front of the façade of a ceased property reminiscent of the economic crisis era, lay a pile of rubbish bags and a TV set. The news reports implicate Morgan Stanley, the Bank of America and Merrill Lynch - the Tate Modern sponsors - in relation to PhD students losing their homes because of fees debts, also confronting the economic state of the art world.
© Le Dictateur/ Photo © Anna-Lucie Feracci
At last, Le Dictateur is funnily positioned at the end of the hall but strategically visible via a Zeppelin : the space competes with the overall noise via sound performances.
© Nico Vascellari © Le Dictateur/ Photo © Anna-Lucie Feracci
When Nico Vascellari gathers and audience with bestial barks, somehow his minimalist presence embodies the essence of the collective's eclectic, performative and media-based work with hyper-realist but dreamy-like, sexually charged and at times morbid thematics.
Reminiscent of Italy's punk anarchist squatting scene, Le Dictateur subversively mirrors Italy's authoritarian government and recalls Pasolini's highly stylisized (sadistic) imagery in Salo.
Photo © Anna-Lucie Feracci
