[maetsen] The Art Funding Collective

Following the research, a new method of art funding was conceptualized that acknowledges the demands of artists and art supporters. Deriving from an older name for art patrons, it was called [maetsen] the art funding collective. During the annual summer exhibition, the new platform was opened and presented in the format of a fair stand.Visitors were invited and asked to donate an arbitrary amount of money to support the project ideas of the artists.

Artist Video Interviews
Fair Stand
Project Launch

with
Yannik Nuss
Johannes Hucht
Patrick Alan Banfield
Nicolas Geissler
Jilian Sieber
Merle Richter
Tomasz Skibicki
Leoni Börger
et al.

2015

The artists were presented through five image films shown inside the fair stand. The booth itself was made out of recycled multi-colored wooden panels and timber. The graphic design and overall CI of handouts, the website, and giveaways referred to startups aesthetics. The staff acted as highly motivated promoters, trying to acquire donors at all costs.

The intention was to overdraw common codes of modern displaying and advertisement noticeably to deconstruct them. The donation period ended and not enough money was collected to realize even one of the drafts made by the artists. [maetsen] the art funding collective remains as an ambiguous comment to usual project-related encouragement practices. It falls behind as a utopian version of a new social way of art funding by acquiring money through liberal methods of emotional addressing and exposition.