Produced with the help of $9,1700 in donations from a campaign on kickstarter.com, the show has a distinct political element: More than half the profits from the sale of photos and books, plus donations at the door, will be given to the gubernatorial recall campaign. Photos will be sold at a two-tier price, "so that everyone regardless of means can take home an image or three," [said John Riggs, the gallery owner]....The story isn't about who did it — the story is what's on the wall. Oh, the collective! Let's merge the individual into the whole. The wall. All in all you're just another brick in the wall. Says the owner, who is named and who claims virtue in not naming the other photographers.
The photos in "Inside, at Night" are mounted to Tamarack Gallery's walls with blue tape reminiscent of the tape used to hang protest posters inside the Capitol....
Organized thematically rather than chronologically, the photos are accompanied by blocks of text written by protesters in the thick of things, excerpts from blog posts, emails, journal entries and Twitter feeds that create a real-time narrative. The exhibited photos themselves will be numbered, but photographers won't be individually credited for their work.
"The story isn't about who did it — the story is what's on the wall," said Riggs, who himself took a quarter of the pictures in the show.
AND: Much as I loathe the collectivist politics and the submerging of individual achievement, I salute Riggs as a businessman. It's a great idea to transform his gallery into a protest art business. You should see all the shops that sell "Wisconsin" T-shirts to Madison tourists. If people come to Madison to check out the protest vibe (or if they live in Madison because they love the cozy comfort of the left-wing cocoon), give them something relevant to buy. I know there are relevant T-shirts. But there's plenty of room in this market for a higher level of protest memorabilia in the fine art category.
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