The artwork in Received Dissent was never meant for gallery walls; quite the opposite. This collection of curiosities, by acclaimed artists like Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Yoko Ono, Roy Lichtenstein, Méret Oppenheim and John Cage, was created to be received by post. The works in the exhibition make up the SMS Portfolio, which was essentially a subscription service whereby the audience would receive art in the post, thus subverting the usual gallery system.
This novel way of creating and distributing art was established by William Copley in 1968 to develop an artistic community that was supportive and inclusive; every contributor received $100 regardless of their reputation. Running for six editions, the SMS Portfolio, which stands for Shit Must Stop, is a capsule of surrealist art, born out of a period of unrest in America.
Although the artworks were originally meant for some sort of artistic dissent, they still pack a punch framed and hung in the Graves Gallery. It is impossible to miss the irony in Nancy Reitkopf’s Luggage Labels that carry all the design features of brash capitalist advertising but depict locations like the Titanic, Hiroshima and a Nazi zeppelin. Likewise, the comment from Mel Ramos on female objectification is loud and clear in Candy, an "activity sheet" that invites you to insert a nude woman into a chocolate wrapper.
Surrealists very often borrow from popular media to comment on the world. Bernard Pfriem recreates the cover of the New York Times in A Proposed Comic Section for the New York Times with a strip of coloured photos of sculptural shapes, removing the usual blocks of text and suggesting another form of communication. Meanwhile, Ray Johnson mocks headline grabbing tabloids with his work A Two Year-Old Girl Choked to Death Today on an Easter Egg.
Many of the works in Received Dissent are funny: Lil Pickard’s Burned Bow Tie that notes in the title card "Commercially purchased bow tie. Burnt as issued"; Paul Steiner’s Johns in Art Galleries that captures conversations overheard in the toilets, such as "tissue paper of exceptional quality", and James Lee Byars's concept for a plural dress worn by four people at a time. Silliness is a powerful tool for these artists, who are able to question the mainstream by disrupting the norm.
The works very often encourage the recipient to be active too, almost like a surrealist activity book. Yoko Ono instructs: "Take your favourite cup. Break it in many pieces with a hammer. Repair it with this glue and poem." And Bruce Nauman’s Footsteps details how to interact with the work and hear the audio recording embedded inside. It seems that the artists become more directional in the knowledge that their art is going directly to an individual.
Received Dissent does an excellent job of recreating the sensation of receiving one of these subscription boxes. The exhibition is arranged by issue, so the pieces remain alongside their original postage companions, together critiquing the surrounding world and probing assumed structures. One can’t help but feel a Shit Must Stop Portfolio wouldn’t go amiss in this day and age.
- Words by
- Hannah Clugston