david michael clarke

something had to happen and it had to happen fast

This text was published at the launch of the Nantes-based artist group 'international boutique'. The ramshackle group did three or four shows together in France, Italy and Denmark before going their seperate ways.

Conferences. We've all been to them. And we've all been bored. Sometimes they last for a weekend. Sometimes they last for a whole week. If you're lucky, one speaker out of twenty will capture your imagination. Sometimes we've been fucking bored. You sit there in the auditorium, desperately trying to pay attention to someone (who's probably a reasonable writer, but nonetheless a lousy orator) and all you can do is sit there, looking around the audience, trying to pick out all the people you want to talk to at recess, and vainly attempting to stop yourself thinking about how every speaker seems to be running over time and how you'll probably only get half an hour for lunch.

Lunches at conferences are either provided, or they are not. If they are provided, you get these different coloured dots corresponding to how much you paid for your ticket (and thus how many meals you're entitled to) on your identity badge. As soon as the last speaker finishes, you try to rush to the door, but a hundred people are already standing in your way, and beginning to form a queue that will last all the way to the canteen. When you finally make it through the doors, you see all the people with whom you hoped to make contact standing at the front of the line. They're always easy to spot because of their multitude of meal dots. The curators from the kunsthalles always have a positive 'rainbow' of dots and they wear them in much the same way as military generals wear their medals. But by the time your standing there with your meal on your plate, their table is already full and your forced to take the only remaining seat, which is unsurprisingly adjacent to the editor of Marxism Monthly. Whatever, the idea of all those meaningful discussions that you hoped to have disappears like the sun behind a cloud.

In the other scenario, the meals are not provided, and everyone congregates outside the front door to smoke a quick fag before scurrying off to find some 'authentic' little restaurant. There's no time to meet new folk so you always end up with the people you already knew and you look through a few windows and scan some menus, but you always move on because of the price. Eventually one of two things happen. Either you end up somewhere nice, but are horrified by the price, or you end up somewhere that looks nice, but the food's shitty. And whatever, meaningful discussions are again surpassed because you have to spend the whole time bringing your old friends up to date on the changes that have happened in you life since last year.

Whatever, a hurried lunch, a little indigestion, and like lambs to the slaughter, you're back in the auditorium for much of the same, only a little more fatigued because you didn't have time for a coffee. And once again you find yourself sitting there, looking at all the people you didn't meet at lunch, and hoping that you'll be able to at least have a little chat with them in the bar that evening. But in the bar, does anything meaningful happen? Is there anyone talking about new ideas? Like hell there is. Nobody talks about new ideas because everyone wants to keep them for themselves. They all want to be the first. All the talk is of what everyone has already done over the last year. Some projects look really impressive, as high-financed curators give away glossy catalogues and CD-Roms. But none of it's new. You've seen it all before in the pages of Flashart and Frieze.

So where can you find this high-energy, intense dialogue that generates the new ideas. Where is the spark that ignites the fuel which powers the drive? Where is this cutting edge of new development? Where are the rules being broken? Not at organised forums, that's for sure.

In Nantes, during the Autumn of 1999, a group of artists started meeting each other on a regular basis. It was not organised, but then again, it didn't exactly happen by chance. Opening after opening. Beer after wine. Bar after restaurant. Club after bar ... and in the drunken haze that followed, new friendships were being born. And the friendships were, and still are, great, don't get me wrong, but somehow on their own they weren't enough. These artists wanted to share more than those fantastically drunken, yet awe-inspiring conversations that would be sadly forgotten the next day. They wanted to share the thing that ironically, they already shared - art. So one night they arranged to get together away from the pub, and talk about their 'stuff' for a bit. Photos, videos, sketches - anything and everything was offered around and discussed. Stories were told and explanations were given - real dialogue had commenced. And then of course, they went back to the pub. But things were cool, so they got together again, and then again, and then again. And then after a couple of months of tossing ideas around in the air, a common attitude started to emerge. Something electric was happening. The energy was bouncing off the walls. Something would have to happen, and it would have to happen fast. The energy needed an outlet. 'International Boutique' was born.

But no sooner than a project is born, than so too are its critics. Why are these artists getting together? Why do they want to work without on a project without a curator? Why don't they want to work with galleries and institutions? What's do they think they will achieve?

Let me put to you a different scenario. A group of kids are bored. They're scratching around for something to do. They decide to get some guitars and knock out some rifs in their parents garage. Soon they've written a couple of songs and get a gig in the back room of their local pub. Next thing you know they're playing all round the town and before you know it their on Top of the Pops. What's the big deal? Nothing. That's just the way it happens. That's the way culture grows. They don't ask their music teacher for permission. They don't even care what s/he thinks. They just want to make music. I mean, do you really believe that The Clash waited for approval from the BBC Symphony Orchestra before they started to play together? Or that The Sex Pistols asked for royal consent before they sang 'God Save The Queen'? And the other thing is that although these kids were punks, they were more intergrated than isolated. They never shunned the industry. Instead they learned how to use it. And more, they learned how to use it on their terms. And what happened next? Well, the world stood up and listened.

And so International Boutique is not a new idea. It's just the same really. A group of artists who got together to see what would happen. And okay things have moved on quite a bit - they're gonna do some 'kick ass' shows together and they're gonna travel the world, but let's not get carried away - it's hardly a revolution. They never positioned themselves on the outside. They never said that they don't want to work with galleries and museums, far from it. In fact, the opposite is true. They're just not gonna hang 'round waiting for the institutions to come to them. Life's too short. They haven't got time for that. They're a group of artists. They want to make art.

David Michael Clarke

International Boutique were: Saadane Afif [France], Virginie Barre [France], Davide Bertocchi [Italy], Mircea Cantor [Romania], David Michael Clarke [Scotland], Esra Ersen [Turkey], Hsia-Fei Chang [Taiwan], Dettie Flynn [Ireland], Anabelle Hulaut [France], Sabine Jamme [France], Guillaume Janot [France], Ines Pais [Portugal], Bruno Peinado [France], Abraham Poincheval [France], Anne de Sterk [France], Laurent Tixador [France]