Chris Evans
IS MY WORK TOO COMMERCIAL?
6 Apr — 6 Apr 2006

‘Is My Work Too Commercial?’ continues Chris Evans’ investigation into how art objects get produced, circulated and consumed. It has echoes of an earlier project by Chris, working with Duncan Hamilton as the ‘All Horizon Club’. ‘Free Tutorials’ took place in January to February 1999, with a minibus of artists visiting 6 art colleges. Turning up unannounced the artists gave free tutorials at each institution, encouraging the students to talk freely about their work unencumbered by institutional protocol.

In the same year Chris also invited artists to put forward ideas that needed financial support from regional arts funding bodies. His fictional agency ‘The UK Arts Board Agency’ would then finesse the proposals before submitting them. The only proviso was that all the proposals should relate to the theme of ‘trees’. Later this year, Chris will continue this exploration into the production of work with a large-scale project called ‘Militant Bourgeois’ which is based on exploring the truism that artists need financial hardship in order to produce ‘authentic’ work.

A spirit of open intellectual enquiry informs ‘Is My Work Too Commercial?’ and this is the only requirement that we ask of the Tutors. The London art world is now a centre for both contemporary art production and consumption, but there is often neither the time nor space for artists to reflect on the particularities of the situation they find themselves operating in. The tutorials will hopefully provide such a space.

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