London: Waddington Galleries 1998, Fax-Bak

The main inspiration for the visual part of the project is ‘BANK fax-bak service’ from 1998 (figure 1). BANK is a group of artists, who criticised the concept of art galleries’ press releases by editing and sending them back to the galleries.

They were famous for the use of harsh and emotional language, expressing their personal opinion, using expressions like: 'STUPID'; 'WRONG!'; 'DON'T DO IT'; 'would be better'; 'weak'; 'Que?'; 'BAD'; 'trying to be clever'; etc. This particular work was finished by them, writing at the bottom: 'This is quite a bad press release. There has been no improvement since your last attempt’. And a grade at the bottom '1/10'.

They weren't scared of speaking their mind, moreover, they were not sugar-coating it. This work is influential to my project because of it in addition to the visual aspects of it. The underlining and circling of the words will be used in the zine, as well as the arrows leading to the critique of the specific parts (1). The colour red used for the stamp will be used as the pen colour for critiques, as it catches the eye (2).

(1). The elements of editing the text, circling phrases

(2). The red stamp, the colour is immediatly noticable.