IC-98, IC-98, THESES ON THE BODY POLITIC

IC-98 (”Iconoclast 1998”) was founded in 1998 as a reaction to the restriction of academic writing. From the beginning, the group has tried to act as freely as possible, always putting the context and the idea before the medium, and the group-subject before the individual, never minding the barriers between different (academic, artistic or activist). In practice, the world of contemporary art has proved to be the most flexible environment for diverse projects, being a free zone of experimentation within the society at large. Though the label ART has en enormous power to neutralise message, and regardless of the fact that art world increasingly resembles the high fashion industry, it nonetheless offers possibilities to put forward ideas without the preconditions of academic work (rules, objectivity), the market (surplus value, capitalist modes of distributions), or activism (the threat of dogmatism). In fact, in IC-98´s idealist-pragmatic programme the project are labelled art only for strategic reasons – the strategy works as long as the concepts of art do not come to dominate the discourse. The same applies to the individuals working in the group: you call yourself artist, just because it is institutionally convenient, because the very concept af ARTIST is obscure.

IC-98 does not confine itself to one medium. The medium of choice always follows strategically the context, its history and the present situation, and the objectives in question. Typically, the working methods have contained interventions and installations in public and gallery spaces as well in publications. In recent years, IC-98 has concentrated primary on the productions of free distribution books. The books, distributed in editions of 500-2000, are collage-like, heterogenic assemblages, or toolboxes, of text, models, instructions, images, diagrams and drawings. Typically, an individual project combines multiple media to present a multifaceted whole – and to connect it to other projects.

Publication:

ISBN 978-952-5648-05-8
Teesejä yhteiskuntaruumiista IC-98 (IC-98, THESES ON THE BODY POLITIC)
Publications of the Pori Art Museum 86