Art by Telephone / Claes Oldenburg (1969)

Ti­tle of the album: Art by Telephone
Ti­tle: Claes Oldenburg (Track 27)
Publisher: Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Da­te: 1969
Me­di­um: re­cord 30 cm
Cover: Sherman Mutchnick

Art by Telephone was an art and ex­hib­i­tion pro­ject of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 1969. It took place two years after the mu­seum opened in the build­ing of the former Play­boy headquar­ters. The mu­seum in­vited artists from the US and Europe to sub­mit their idea for a work of art con­veyed over the tele­phone, whereupon the mu­seum staff began to im­ple­ment the idea. The pro­ject re­lied ex­clus­ively on oral com­mu­nic­a­tion by tele­phone; writ­ten memos or draw­ings were avoided. The cent­ral fig­ure in the pro­ject was cur­ator David H. Katzive, who took the phone calls and re­layed the work as­sign­ments to the staff. This res­ul­ted in room-sized in­stall­a­tions, some of which were geared to­wards vis­itor par­ti­cip­a­tion, but also small-scale con­cep­tual works or in­struc­tions for short hap­pen­ings or per­form­ances to be car­ried out by vis­it­ors. The ex­hib­i­tion was ded­ic­ated to John Cage and Mar­cel Duch­amp, who had leaned on par­ti­cip­a­tion, but by whom a large num­ber of the par­ti­cip­at­ing artists had been in­flu­enced. It ran from Novem­ber 1st to Decem­ber 14th 1969 after which all the works were des­troyed or dis­posed of by the mu­seum.

The Mu­seum of Con­tem­por­ary Art's vinyl re­leaseArt by Telephonewas con­ceived as an ex­hib­i­tion cata­logue. It con­tains a few minutes long ex­cerpts of tele­phone in­struc­tions by 37 artists made between Septem­ber and Oc­to­ber 1969, along with a brief in­tro­duc­tion by the cur­ator.

The par­ti­cip­at­ing artists were: Siah Arma­jani, Ar­man, Richard Artschwager, John Baldes­sari, Iain Bax­ter, Mel Boch­ner, George Brecht, Jack Burnham, James Lee Byars, Robert H. Cum­ming, Fran­cois Dal­legret, Jan Dib­bets, John Giorno, Robert Gros­venor, Hans Haacke, Richard Hamilton, Dick Hig­gins, Davi Det Hompson, Robert Huot, Alain Jac­quet, Ed Kein­holz, Joseph Kosuth, Les Lev­ine, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mor­ris, Bruce Nau­man, Claes Olden­burg, Den­nis Op­pen­heim, Richard Serra, Robert Smith­son, Guen­ther Uecker, Stan VanDer­Beek, Bernar Venet, Frank Lin­coln Viner, Wolf Vos­tell, Wil­liam Weg­man and Wil­liam T. Wiley.

The Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1967 un­der the dir­ec­tion of Jan van der Marck and from the be­gin­ning showed it­self to be a place for the latest, multi-fa­ceted ex­pres­sions of con­tem­por­ary art. Thus, in the same year as Art by Telephone, the mu­seum build­ing was the first to be wrapped by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Con­cep­tual art, sound art, video art, hap­pen­ings and per­form­ances took place as well as re­flect­ive sym­po­sia, read­ings and dis­cus­sions.

In ad­di­tion to Claes Olden­burg, Richard Hamilton is also rep­res­en­ted on sound­col­lec­tion.de with hisArt by Telephonein­ter­view ex­cerpt.

_PS