Backbone Peninsula, Fine-Art Print Aquarell Torchon, 80x35cm, Ed. 5 + AP, 2015
Excerpts Series, Fine-Art Print, 14,3×21 cm, Unique Ed. each, 2015
Backbone is a reletional project and a reflection on the topic of resilience, in scientific terms the ability of a system to overcome a change, seen through the lens of paid employment. The print portrays a list in a chronological order of all the secondary jobs that some of the members of Peninsula (a no profit art association based in Berlin) have had to hold during their career in order to be able to continue to pursue their work as artists.
The final list, which looks almost like a backbone and recalls the Italian expression farsi le ossa (literally to make your bones strong, meaning to learn the ropes), does not provide the names of the artists; instead it lists the jobs and the years they were conducted in order to focus on the effort expended by the artists to ensure their own professional survival and how this has changed, or not, over the course of different decades.
The work touches upon a taboo rarely discussed about the difficulty of making a living as an artist exclusively from the sale of your work and the continuous efforts of resistance, remodeling, elasticity and reinvention with regard to yourself, your research and all the external conditions that continuously vary in relation to the market, social and political contexts. 21 artists have contributed to this project, engaging into the process, enriching the discussion and the critical prospectives on the topic. they have my sincere thanks.
