The Deconsumptionists Art as Archive 2009 - in OSMOS Magazine Issue 20
Aside from their individual long-term ventures into sculpture, painting, photography and ceramics Paul Lamarre and Melissa Wolf are filmmakers from New York City who work collaboratively (1983-present) under the name EIDIA (see Manifesto). Together, they also serve as co-directors of EIDIA House, a Brooklyn-based meeting place and forum for artists, scholars, poets, writers, architects and others interested in “idée force” the arts as an instrument for positive social change. EIDIA’s practice is based on ‘aesthetic research’ and often times can presents its form through multimedia installation. Their endeavors explore the dynamics of art politics, social spaces, and the environment. EIDIA works are in numerous private collections, museums, art institutions and in over 200 prominent universities and colleges internationally—including the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute.
INSTAGRAM 1
INSTAGRAM 2
EIDIA Manifesto Napkin 1978, Letterpress on napkin 1996, edition of 100
RYAN LEE Gallery shows EIDIA’s "Done Decks" a kinetic sculpture / installation in the Gallery’s, RLWindow, which is a dedicated exhibition space featuring video, installation, and performance art designed to engage High Line visitors, viewable from the elevated public park at 26th Street. July 11 – August 10, 2018
"FOOD SEX ART the Starving Artist’s Cookbook / Video Archive" at RYAN LEE Gallery NYC, NY July 11-August 10 2018 curated by Arthur Fournier.
The Ball Game 2005-present
Like any ball game wherein the players passionately play to win as if they were "gods" seeking to control the universe—using any and all tactics of play. The EIDIA Ball Game is put forward as a symbol of the earth- you decide how to play it. What is the earth for you as you hold it in your hand? You can play the game in a stupid fashion, or you can choose to be responsibly intelligent, given the earth is a ‘ball’ on which you and future generations depend on to survive. EIDIA’s “Ball Game" is an installation of balls of various histories, traditions, and compositions which are perched on fifty - 5x5x5 inch custom cut honed finish solid white Carrara marble cubes which are spaced 3 to 10 feet apart on an exhibition floor so the viewer can walk between and perhaps grab a ball and join the game. Four balls are custom cast solid bronze, embossed with the EIDIA logo and with Greek God’s names such as Zeus and Hermes. Visitors to The Ball Game hold the bronze ball in their hand as they stroll between the varied balls on the marble cubes. As gods gaze down at their earth they contemplate what games they will play with their “blue planet.” From a cat's eye marble to a basketball or cricket or ping pong or golf ball, the game is on. It is your play.
Collages 1975-present
These works alchemize material of the past made for propaganda and commercial advertisement, thus taking on new significance and meaning in these days of crisis and catastrophe on a seemingly daily basis.
Melissa Wolf's collage / ‘bricolages’ represent a key aspect of EIDIA's 'aesthetic research' by transforming accumulations of readymades, if you will, an aesthetic displacement.
These assemblages are montage images culled from found materials, some over hundred years old, that served to promote the consumerist ethos as the raison d'être of American life. The collages plummet the depths of the ’collective memory’ contrasting images of revolution, violence, protest and war with the ‘objects of desire’, sex, cars, fashion, fast food and beautiful homes. This work is also influenced by the "Cut-Ups" of William Burroughs and Brion Gysin, the "Combine" paintings of Robert Rauschenberg, the Shadow Boxes of Joseph Cornell and photo montages by Gilbert and George.
They are in numerous collections along with other EIDIA works. The Collages are composed on found materials such as Record Album Covers, Vinyls, Surf Boards, and Skateboard Decks and archival rag hand made paper. They were created starting in 1975 to the present in varying sizes from 4 x 9 feet to 4 x 5 inches.
These works alchemize material of the past made for propaganda and commercial advertisement, thus taking on new significance and meaning in these days of crisis and catastrophe on a seemingly daily basis.
Melissa Wolf's collage / ‘bricolages’ represent a key aspect of EIDIA's 'aesthetic research' by transforming accumulations of readymades, if you will, an aesthetic displacement.
These assemblages are montage images culled from found materials, some over hundred years old, that served to promote the consumerist ethos as the raison d'être of American life. The collages plummet the depths of the ’collective memory’ contrasting images of revolution, violence, protest and war with the ‘objects of desire’, sex, cars, fashion, fast food and beautiful homes. This work is also influenced by the "Cut-Ups" of William Burroughs and Brion Gysin, the "Combine" paintings of Robert Rauschenberg, the Shadow Boxes of Joseph Cornell and photo montages by Gilbert and George.
They are in numerous collections along with other EIDIA works. The Collages are composed on found materials such as Record Album Covers, Vinyls, Surf Boards, and Skateboard Decks and archival rag hand made paper. They were created starting in 1975 to the present in varying sizes from 4 x 9 feet to 4 x 5 inches.
ROY G BIV impasto paintings 1985-1989
The ROY G BIV impasto paintings are a series of 30 paintings and sculptures ranging in size from 9x16 inches to 17x84 inches The works are signed verso and titled by a number.
On masonite and varied woods they were produced by EIDIA with one intern in a tiny art studio in the famous 611 Cable Building in SoHo during the 1980s. The impasto pigment (secret) formula was invented and developed by Lamarre while being mentored by Jerome Kamrowski the noted New York Abstract Expressionists, the last artist invited into the Surrealist by André Breton. Kamrowski who chaired the painting department at the University of Michigan also previously mentored the artist Mike Kelley.
The intended style of the ROY G BIV works were EIDIA's response to “Neo-Geo,” a burgeoning painting trend in the East Village at the time in ‘artist run galleries’ such as International with Monument and Nature Morte. This was during the period of the Post-Modernism movement with artists such as, Jeff Koons, Meyer Vasiman, Peter Halley and Mark Dagley.
The ROY G BIV impasto paintings are a series of 30 paintings and sculptures ranging in size from 9x16 inches to 17x84 inches The works are signed verso and titled by a number.
On masonite and varied woods they were produced by EIDIA with one intern in a tiny art studio in the famous 611 Cable Building in SoHo during the 1980s. The impasto pigment (secret) formula was invented and developed by Lamarre while being mentored by Jerome Kamrowski the noted New York Abstract Expressionists, the last artist invited into the Surrealist by André Breton. Kamrowski who chaired the painting department at the University of Michigan also previously mentored the artist Mike Kelley.
The intended style of the ROY G BIV works were EIDIA's response to “Neo-Geo,” a burgeoning painting trend in the East Village at the time in ‘artist run galleries’ such as International with Monument and Nature Morte. This was during the period of the Post-Modernism movement with artists such as, Jeff Koons, Meyer Vasiman, Peter Halley and Mark Dagley.
"The Psychiatrist’s Office American Battle For Abundance" 2010-2015
A visitor to the psychiatrist’s office sits in the chair, reads the pamphlets, and ponders their failed American Dream. “The Psychiatrist’s Office” is an installation (or play) composed to suggest a darker calculated history to the current cybernetic disruption of common social interactions. Like a warped waiting room out of a Sam Beckett play, a wall of panoramic photographs showing hundreds of people standing and sitting in groups—backdrop a black Naugahyde (faux leather) chair that has on its seat, pamphlets created for the expanding consuming public by Fordian corporations, post World War II—with titles such as: “The Magic of Your Telephone” and “American Battle For Abundance.” As with the organizing of society into groups, and with the invention of Psychiatry, these pamphlet propagandize promoted social networking vis-à-vis mass communications and reinforced social class representational imagery, to coalesce participation in the division of labor. This emblematic “collectivism” in turn is promoted in the name of democracy reflected in the panoramic photos; and where the one true master—CORPORATISM—remains cloaked from view.
A visitor to the psychiatrist’s office sits in the chair, reads the pamphlets, and ponders their failed American Dream. “The Psychiatrist’s Office” is an installation (or play) composed to suggest a darker calculated history to the current cybernetic disruption of common social interactions. Like a warped waiting room out of a Sam Beckett play, a wall of panoramic photographs showing hundreds of people standing and sitting in groups—backdrop a black Naugahyde (faux leather) chair that has on its seat, pamphlets created for the expanding consuming public by Fordian corporations, post World War II—with titles such as: “The Magic of Your Telephone” and “American Battle For Abundance.” As with the organizing of society into groups, and with the invention of Psychiatry, these pamphlet propagandize promoted social networking vis-à-vis mass communications and reinforced social class representational imagery, to coalesce participation in the division of labor. This emblematic “collectivism” in turn is promoted in the name of democracy reflected in the panoramic photos; and where the one true master—CORPORATISM—remains cloaked from view.