CLEVELAND, OHIO.- The Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland presents "Christine Hill: Pilot (Cleveland)," on view through May 4, 2003. Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland and developed by Associate Curator, Amy Gilman.
“A new project that straddles a line so fine that skeptical viewers seem about equally divided between those who can’t believe it’s art and those who can’t believe it’s life.”
–The Village Voice on Christine Hill: Pilot
In her exhibition, Pilot (Cleveland), artist Christine Hill transforms the gallery at MOCA into the set and studio for her fictional late-night TV talk show and, in effect, makes “art making” her art form.
Hill’s artistic output, framed within the context of “cottage-industry,” places her art making squarely within the world of exchange and activity. Like her artistic soul mates—Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol and Madonna—Hill divorces art from its ivory tower status, positioning human interaction and dialogue at the core of her projects as she moves beyond the traditional context of an art exhibition to create a sculptural environment that is created first and foremost for public consumption. In today’s cyberspace culture of dot-coms and Internet start-ups, Christine Hill revives the notion of the cottage industry based on the fair trade of goods and services and grounded in a romanticized ideal of a “bricks and mortar” place of business. By exhibiting the day-to-day process of building the idea, as well as the product, Hill deftly reveals the artistic underpinnings of the social structures of life.
The Pilot exhibition is an investigation of persona, humor, entertainment practices and performance art which marks the continuation of a series of “organizational ventures” by Hill under her work and production label, Volksboutique. After debuting the original Pilot was presented at the New York City’s Ronald Feldman Gallery in the fall of 2000, Hill brings Pilot to MOCA for its second incarnation with the goal of creating an episode in multiple cities.
In a sense, Christine Hill will be an artist-in-residence as she spends five weeks (February 21 – March 28) at MOCA prior to the project’s culmination on Friday, March 28th with the taping of the Pilot (Cleveland) episode before a live studio audience. Before the episode taping, during regular MOCA gallery hours, the entire evolution of a talk show will be on public display: the development of the host persona, writers’ meetings, technical walk-throughs and band rehearsals.
This interactive and evolutionary approach to art making ensures a new experience each time a visitor returns to MOCA to experience Pilot (Cleveland). In the five weeks following the taping (March 31 – May 4, 2003), Hill no longer will be in residence working in the galleries at MOCA Cleveland. On view in the galleries, however, will be the empty set and studio and abandoned production office, in addition to a video installation of the Pilot (Cleveland) episode taped on March 28th as well as elements of Hill’s past Volksboutique projects.
Born in Binghamton, New York, 1968, Christine Hill is one of today’s most provocative artists with projects that present art as a vocation. Upon graduation from The Maryland Institute College of Art in 1991, Hill moved to Berlin, Germany, where she lived and worked for 8 years, creating a punk rock band and developing and presenting Volksboutique (a second-hand clothing store), which was shown at Documenta X in 1997. In 1998, she returned to the United States as an artist-in-residence at New York City’s PS1 Contemporary Art Center with her Volksboutique Office of Foreign Affairs. Following her work with PS1, Hill established the New York City tour agency Tourguide? and developed her first Pilot episode for the Ronald Feldman Gallery. Hill’s “offices,” “stores” and “businesses” have been shown worldwide and her limited Volksboutique merchandise line continues its distribution.
This exhibition of Christine Hill: Pilot (Cleveland) has been generously sponsored by an anonymous donor.