Exhibitions: Current Upcoming Open Call / Submissions

I Heart My Attitude Collection: The Store
by Barb Choit

Fresh from the NADA Art Fair Miami Beach
now in New York!

December 15, 2011- January 15, 2012
Opening reception Thurrsday, December 15, 6 - 8 PM

ChoitAttitude LinneaAttitude

Attitude is everything, they say.

We think it is more important than that.

Dumbo Arts Center is very pleased to announce that we will be presenting Barb Choit's superlative new project I Heart My Attitude Collection: The Store at the NADA Miami Beach Art Fair December 1 - December 4, 2011.

Drawing from her past installation projects that have involved curating collections of mass produced objects and representing these collections as art works, I Heart My Attitude Collection: The Store deals with goods that have been specifically merchandised to reflect the “attitude” of their owners. These objects include t-shirts, tote bags, mugs and key chains that are printed with such classic phrases as:

“Lithuanian with an Attitude"
“If you don’t like my Brooklyn attitude, quit talking to me,"
and "I don't have an attitude problem, you have a being an asshole problem."

Choit has selected over 100 objects from around the world and will be converting a standard art fair booth into a boutique setting in which the objects will be displayed with room for reflection, in opposition to their normal mode of presentation: the mall. The conversion of the art fair booth into a boutique will allow the artist's carefully cultivated Attitude Collection to be on display in its entirety.

Choit’s project is related to the ready-made strategies practiced by Richard Prince, Louise Lawler and Haim Steinbach. She deviates from those formulas, however, by retaining the aura of the individual for whom the object was “originally” intended, rather than presenting an anonymous ready-made. The Attitude Collection calls to mind, if not the specific individual, a strongly defined cultural actor. Instead of just lifting the Attitude goods into the realm of high art for aesthetic contemplation (though she does that), Choit’s project calls into question the very modes of aesthetic expression available to us. The original goal of the items in the collection is to define a particular toughness of the individual wearing them. The items are permeated by a sense of sadness that the options for the individual’s expression of their personality were limited to this very narrow course. By placing these items in a more rarefied setting, Choit asks for contemplation of these questions, as well as asking how limiting such expression may be.

Barb Choit "I Heart MyAttitude Problem," 2011, Canvas tote bag

Importantly, Choit will be offering for sale curated selections of the Collection, in consultation with the potential buyer. These curated selections will be grouped based on the specific attitude the buyer is hoping to convey, a refined expression that is a more definite statement than any one of the items could convey individually.

Choit is also producing a limited edition of "I Heart My Attitude Problem" artworks of her own design to be available only at the fair. These items include the art fair staple, the tote bag, featuring many of the slogans in the Collection as well as an "I Don't Have an Attitude Problem, You Have a Perception Problem" print. These works position the artist, the venue and the audience squarely in the midst of the struggle to maintain authenticity and individuality in the ever-increasingly homogenized mass-culture marketplace.

About Barb Choit
Barb Choit received a Master of Fine Arts in photography from The California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA, and a Master of Arts in Modern Art and Curatorial Studies from Columbia University, New York, NY. Collecting and archiving, and the relationship of these acts to photography, informs her current work. In addition to making art works to be shown in museums and galleries she has been running a, sometimes physical, sometimes theoretical, institution, the Division Museum of Ceramics and Glassware, since 2007. Choit’s work has been exhibited internationally in such venues as Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver, Canada; The Swiss Institute New York, NY and Kunstraum München, Munich, Germany. Her work has been reviewed in the New York Times, Art in America, and www.artforum.com. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include such venues as Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York ;Blanket Contemporary Art Inc., Vancouver; and Forever & Today, New York, NY. She hearts her cattitude.

DAC's programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, The New York State Council on the Arts, Two Trees Management LLC., and the Board and Members of DAC.

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Barb Choit "I Don't Have An Attitude Problem, You Have a Perception Problem," 2011, archival ink-jet on canvas


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