Stick It On!

Analyzing social practices in art, the art critic Claire Bishop challenges artists to abandon their authorial presence in favor of a project audience and turn into a platform for their statements. She insists that this “self-sacrifice is accompanied by the idea that art should extract itself from the “useless” domain of the aesthetic and be fused with social praxis”.

This is the approach Bik Van der Pol used. As mediators and initiators of the artistic process. They solicit the broadcasting of public opinion and offer the audience to continue and/ or complete their artistic ideas. This process allows the work to integrate into life, which ultimately leads to the independent existence of the work that starts to then transform and acquire new meanings.

“Stick It On!” 1) was placed in the Central Library of the Frunzenskiy district. It is a wooden structure based on a drawing of a mobile propaganda booth called ‘Radio Orator’ which was first created by the constructivist artist Gustav Klucis. The Russian art of the avant-garde was always very closely linked with the social and political processes of the times. Bik Van der Pol gave a new interpretation to the work by Klucis – they turned an agitating speaker booth into a platform for raising and discussing matters important for local residents who could

Stick It On!

leave their opinions, requests, suggestions or comments about the improvement of the area as well as the political situation on this wooden structure.

The Central Library of the Frunzenskiy district suggested that the work should travel to other libraries, giving other people an opportunity to openly express themselves and discuss questions that concern them. (project for Critical Mass, St. Petersburg. text: TOK curators)

1) Stick in on! refers to the following meanings of the expression: 1. To be or become fastened or attached to someone or something. 2. To attach or fasten something onto someone or something else. 3. To add something to something else, especially something that is or seems ancillary or superfluous.