We´re Only In For The Money
Anna Daniell & Sverre Strandberg
Various art materials, looped sound, paint marker on the wall, lambda prints
2009
Chang-Dong Art Studio, Contemporary Art Museum Korea
Catalogue text
The installation "We’re Only In For The Money" shows two figures assembled of new/unused art materials; the type of products you will find in a regular art material shop. The two figures are doing the activity of tagging "We’re Only In For The Money" on the gallery wall. One figure is pushing the pedestal with the other figure on top in order to move along the wall.
The title is taken from Frank Zappas 1968 album "We're Only in It for the Money" - which was a parody of the Beatles record "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ". Zappas album may suggested that The Beatles made something quite sellable out of the “Flower Power-scene” on cost of the radical and experimental. Instead the hippie expression became just another “image”.
In this context the installation "We’re Only In For The Money" reflects up on the struggling artist trying to make sellable works and also point towards the discourse between matter and idea in art history. The materials also function as peculiar types of found objects bearing the potential of beeing reorganized.
The installation contains a sound piece: two voices, one Korean and one English, is reading out the receipts of thart materials. The photographs on the contrary, depicting the two figures in black and white, is parasitic to the main installation glorifying the two figures and suggests self reflection.